Indigenous Languages
Currently, there is no language mark up to Indigenous Languages in Microsoft Word. To remediate this we mark up all Indigenous words in strong style. This includes proper names and places.
There are span tags that have been created by the IANA for a few Indigenous Languages. These span tags can be added later in the conversion process directly into the XML files for EPUB3 and DAISY text. Unfortunately, screen readers do not recognize these tags at the time of reading this. Despite this, we do want to add these tags in so when the technology catches up the language tags are there.
This section will explain how to set up the Indigenous Languages in Word to help the Production Coordinator add the span tags during conversion.
There are two steps for marking Indigenous Languages:
- Apply Strong style to the words and phrases.
- Insert a Producer's Note at the beginning of the text to inform the reader what Indigenous Languages are in the book, and that Text-To-Speech is unable to pronounce these words.
- Leave a comment in the RT ticket indicating what Indigenous Languages are in the book.
Example of Indigenous Language Producer's Note
Producer’s Note (heading 1)
This book uses words and phrases written in [insert language name]. Text-to-speech software will not be able to pronounce the Indigenous-language words correctly in this Word version. (normal style)
French Translation:
Note de rédacteur
Ce livre comporte des mots et des phrases en [insert language name]. Les synthèses vocales ne seront pas en mesure de prononcer correctement les mots en langue autochtone dans cette version en format Word.
