<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 TRANSITIONAL//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; CHARSET=UTF-8"> <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="GtkHTML/3.6.2"> </HEAD> <BODY> <TT>Hi Martin,</TT> <TT>There is no contradiction in the specs regarding source languages. The</TT> <TT>attribute "source-language" is required in <file> elements and it</TT> <TT>indicates the language for the <source> elements in the given <file></TT> <TT>element.</TT> <TT>All <source> elements that are direct children of <trans-unit> in a</TT> <TT>given <file> have the same implied language. You can either include or</TT> <TT>omit an "xml:lang" attribute in these <source> elements, but if you</TT> <TT>include it, then its value must match the one declared at <file> level.</TT> <TT>You can, however, use any language in <source> elements that belong to</TT> <TT>an <alt-trans> element. Nevertheless, it does not make sense to use</TT> <TT>unrelated source languages in <alt-trans> elements. Variations of a same</TT> <TT>root language are relevant, like en-US and en-GB, but mixing things like</TT> <TT>en-GB and de-DE is not useful at all.</TT> <TT>Situation with target language is similar. The main difference is that</TT> <TT>the attribute "target-language" is not required in <file> element.</TT> <TT>If you declare a "target-language" attribute at <file> level, then you</TT> <TT>don't need to declare an "xml:lang" attribute in the <target> of a</TT> <TT><trans-unit>. The language declared at <file> is considered to be</TT> <TT>inherited. The optional "xml:lang" should always match "target-language"</TT> <TT>as a child of <trans-unit> but can vary as a child of <alt-trans>.</TT> <TT>In a similar way, you are free to use any language in <target> elements</TT> <TT>of an <alt-trans>. As said before, unrelated languages do not make much</TT> <TT>sense. Notice that you can have more than one <target> element in</TT> <TT><alt-trans>, so it is in theory possible to find related translations</TT> <TT>for the same source in different dialects.</TT> <TT>Hope this helps,</TT> <TT>Rodolfo</TT> <TT>On Mon, 2005-09-19 at 17:41 +0200, Martin Wunderlich wrote:</TT> <TT>> May I take the liberty to trouble you with another one of my</TT> <TT>> XLIFF-beginner questions? I was wondering about the exact relationship</TT> <TT>> between the attributes "source-language" in the <file> element and the</TT> <TT>> attribute in "xml:lang" in the elements <xliff>, <source> and</TT> <TT>> <target>. </TT> <TT>>  </TT> <TT>> 1) When it says "The optional xml:lang attribute is used to specify</TT> <TT>> the language of the content of the document", does this mean it</TT> <TT>> specifies the same language as "source-language" for the <file></TT> <TT>> elements?</TT> <TT>>  </TT> <TT>> 2) If I have the attributes "source-language" and "target-language"</TT> <TT>> set for a <file> element, would I still need to specify "xml:lang" for</TT> <TT>> the sources and targets of the file's TU's?</TT> <TT>>  </TT> <TT>> If I understand the specs correctly, they don't enforce any mappings</TT> <TT>> between these attributes. So, you could in theory have contradicting</TT> <TT>> language settings, it seems. </TT> <TT>>  </TT> <TT>> Cheers, </TT> <TT>>  </TT> <TT>> Martin</TT> <TABLE CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="0" WIDTH="100%"> <TR> <TD> -- Rodolfo M. Raya <<A HREF="mailto:rodolfo@heartsome.net">rodolfo@heartsome.net</A>> Heartsome Holdings Pte Ltd </TD> </TR> </TABLE> </BODY> </HTML>