DOCBOOK-APPS: Some localization issues

["Kogule, Ryo" <aqua_dabbler at mac dot com>]

Hi forks,

I recently started using DocBook with DSSSL to write Japanese documents and
noticed some localization issues.  I can modify stylesheets personally in
order to fix them of course, but they seem to be general.  Thus I post this
message.


1. Person's name

The current stylesheet produces an author name in the order of <firstname>
<surname> even if "lang" is equal to "ja".  That's funny.  The normal order
of Japanese name must be <surname> <firstname>.

However, fixing (ja-author-string) is not enough.  When we write a foreign
person's name, we keep the original order of that name with additional
punctuation.  John Smith, for instance, is "John" (in Katakana), middle-dot,
"Smith" (in Katakana).

Another example is my name. "Kogulé, Ryo" is not in Japanese because it's
not written in Kanji but in the Roman alphabet.  Nevertheless, "Ryo Kogulé"
is not my name although "Ryo" is the first name.

This is not only the matter of the expression but also of the nature.
Actually there is no relationship between the language in which a person's
name is written and the nature what it is.  I guess DocBook has an attribute
which tells that nature.


2. Word order

I found "Revisedby" entity isn't localized in dsssl/common/dbl1ja.ent.  I
can easily tell "revised by" in Japanese, but a new problem appears then.
The word order should be revauthor &Revisedby; in Japanese but this order is
embedded in dbttlpg.dsl.

This looks similar to Person's name issue but completely depends on the
language.  The word order issue often arises on localization.  Thus it's
better to put that order into local parts.  There have to be other embedded
orders though I only catch "Revisedby" at this time.


Regards,
  Kogulé, Ryo