Bilingual/Multilingual inscriptions - xml:lang in textpart does not display in EFES

[Martina Filosa]

Dear all,

A couple of questions regarding xml:lang and the encoding of bilingual/multilingual inscriptions.

(1) We have some bilingual seals (Greek/Latin, Greek/Syriac, Greek/Armenian, Greek/Georgian and so on...) and very often each language has its own face of the seal. In order to show the two faces of the seal we use <div type="textpart" subtype="face" n="obv"> for the obverse and n="rev" for the reverse. We would like to signal the change of language in the textpart with an xml:lang, which seems to be allowed by the schema. EFES, however, doesn't seem to like it very much and with this kind of markup there is just no output for the edition. Any ideas?

(2) Moreover, whenever we have a bilingual seal, we would like to signal the presence of more languages in <div type="edition">; however two or more xml:lang are not allowed. How do we encode this bit of information?

I remember a discussion about using foreign for signalling another language within an inscription, this is however IMO misleading (at least in our specific case) as it would imply a hierarchy among languages. We have, e.g., very often the case of someone signing on the obverse in Greek and on the reverse in Latin in both cases as their main language.

Does any of you have bilingual inscriptions? How did you deal with this issue?

All the very best,

m.

--

Martina Filosa, M.A.

Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin

ANR/DFG DigiByzSeal - VolkswagenStiftung DiBS

Universität zu Köln
Institut für Altertumskunde
Abteilung Byzantinistik und Neugriechische Philologie
Albertus-Magnus-Platz

D-50923 Köln

martina...@uni-koeln.de

[Jamie Norrish]

On Sat, 2023-03-11 at 15:26 +0100, Martina Filosa wrote:

> In order to show the two faces of the seal we use <div
> type="textpart" subtype="face" n="obv"> for the obverse and
> n="rev" for the reverse. We would like to signal the change of
> language in the textpart with an xml:lang, which seems to be allowed
> by the schema. EFES, however, doesn't seem to like it very much and
> with this kind of markup there is just no output for the edition. Any
> ideas?

Can you please provide a full document where you are seeing this issue
- off-list is fine.

> (2) Moreover, whenever we have a bilingual seal, we would like to
> signal the presence of more languages in <div type="edition">;
> however two or more xml:lang are not allowed. How do we encode this
> bit of information?

@xml:lang is used to specify the language of the content of the element
to which it is attached (unless and until overridden by a descendant
@xml:lang). To mark the more general presence of languages in the
document, use langUsage and/or textLang.

> I remember a discussion about using foreign for signalling another
> language within an inscription, this is however IMO misleading (at
> least in our specific case) as it would imply a hierarchy among
> languages.

I don't believe it does imply a hierarchy; tei:foreign is used to mark
a change from the current language context, nothing more, carrying no
other semantics - it is specifically a placeholder element for marking
a language change where no semantically relevant markup is applicable.
It makes no statement about the author's relationship to the languages.

Jamie

[Martina Filosa]

Hi all,

Thank you so much, Jamie, for this thorough answer. 

Attached you will find a full document with the encoding of a bilingual seal (obverse Greek, reverse Latin).

All the very best,

m.

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[Jamie Norrish]

On Mon, 2023-03-13 at 10:53 +0100, Martina Filosa wrote:

> Attached you will find a full document with the encoding of a
> bilingual seal (obverse Greek, reverse Latin).

In my display[1], the file as it stands (with no @xml:lang on the
textpart divs), the obv and rev are both displayed. If I add @xml:lang
(grc and lat respectively) to the textpart divs, the display does not
change at all.

Which is what I'd expect from the code - the language pruning that is
performed does not operate on the inscriptions, specifically:

tei:div[@type='edition']
tei:div[@type='edition']//tei:div[@type='textpart']
tei:div[@type='edition']//tei:ab
tei:foreign
tei:div[@type='translation']

I understand from your original message that after adding the xml:lang
attributes, the whole inscription is no longer displayed? Does this
happen if you have an @xml:lang on only one of the textpart divs?


For reference, when I have the following, it displays as if the
@xml:lang attributes were not there (though the underlying HTML
includes the language codes):

<div type="edition" subtype="editorial" xml:space="preserve">
<div type="textpart" subtype="face" n="obv" rend="linear"
xml:lang="grc">
<ab>
<lb n="1"/>Γεν
<lb n="2" break="no"/>ναδί
<lb n="3" break="no"/>ου
</ab>
</div>
<div type="textpart" subtype="face" n="rev" rend="linear"
xml:lang="lat">
<ab>
<lb n="4"/><expan><abbr>com</abbr><ex>itis</ex></expan>
<lb n="5"/><expan><abbr>Sacr</abbr><ex>arum</ex></expan>
<lb n="6"/><expan><abbr>L</abbr><ex>argitionum</ex></expan>
</ab>
</div>
</div>


[1] My config.xmap has the following:

<epidoc-edition-type>interpretive</epidoc-edition-type>
<epidoc-edn-structure>sample</epidoc-edn-structure>
<epidoc-external-app-style>iospe</epidoc-external-app-style>
<epidoc-image-loc>/images/</epidoc-image-loc>
<epidoc-internal-app-style>none</epidoc-internal-app-style>
<epidoc-leiden-style>panciera</epidoc-leiden-style>
<epidoc-line-inc>5</epidoc-line-inc>
<epidoc-verse-lines>on</epidoc-verse-lines>


Jamie

[Martina Filosa]

Dear Jamie,

Thank you so much! Thanks to your explanation I managed to fix the problem: for some reason our file prune-to-language.xsl (the one living in webapps\ROOT\stylesheets\epidoc\prune-to-language.xsl) was matching only tei:div[@type='edition'], nothing below that level.

Now everything displays the way it should!

Thanks again!

m.

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