Topic on Talk:Directionality support

Is directionality determined by language or script? I've never actually heard anyone talk from R to L. Is there a step further on (like: "en is written in the Latin alphabet, and thus is written LTR"? As an illustration: the language en:Serbo-Croatian is written in Cyrillic script and in Arabic script (and more scripts, but here is the point). -DePiep 23:20, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

This post was posted by Krinkle, but signed as DePiep.

Let me illustrate my point.

• An audio file in Hebrew is not RTL. I discussed this yesterday by telephone with a friend, in Arabic, and he too was not talking with a specific directionality.
• The current example File:LTR content with RTL interface (after).png does have a mirrored interface (mirrored from the en.wikipedia), but that "interface" is not scriptwise RTL by itself. It is perfectly imaginable (if not possible) to have that mirrored layout, and use English LTR content everywhere.
• (By the way, should the word "interface" not be "style", as opposed to "content"? CSS and all.)
• Is there a decisive list available that says: "language Aa(a) is written in script Xxxx"? The list could be decisive for all wikiworld. This way thousands of languages would fold into some hundreds of scripts.
• My suggestion is: when talking directionality, don't talk languages, but talk scripts. Only scholars & researchers are allowed to mix up those -- in a controlled environment. Outside it is dangerously confusing! -DePiep 10:23, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

This post was posted by Krinkle, but signed as DePiep.

Directionality is indeed determined by script, but currently in MediaWiki there is no clear distinction between language and script. For example, there is a "kk-latn", "kk-cyrl" and "kk-arab" language file (just like there are "fr", "de" and "ca" language files), which is all in Kazakh but in different scripts. So the language used on the page can refer to either term. That's why I refer to language rather than script. And how could one talk from right to left? The image is indeed a mirrored interface, but in MediaWiki that means it is displayed as RTL, which becomes clear when you browse other pages in an RTL interface. The word interface looks fine to me. There is no such list yet, but I am planning for quite some time to make one (there is a a list, but it's not precise nor decisive). SPQRobin 23:17, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

This post was posted by Krinkle, but signed as SPQRobin.