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This document points to resources for the layout and presentation of text in languages that use the Mongolian script. The target audience includes developers of Web standards and technologies, such as HTML, CSS, Mobile Web, Digital Publications, and Unicode, as well as implementers of web browsers, ebook readers, and other applications that need to render Mongolian text.
This document points to resources for Mongolian script layout and text support on the Web and in eBooks. These requirements provide information for Web technologies such as CSS, HTML and digital publications about how to support languages written using the Mongolian script. The information here is developed in conjunction with a document that summarises gaps where the Web fails to adequately support the Mongolian script.
The editor's draft of this document is being developed in the GitHub repository Mongolian Language Enablement (mlreq), with contributors from the W3C Internationalization Interest Group. It is published by the Internationalization Working Group. The end target for this document is a Working Group Note.
To make it easier to track comments, please raise separate issues or emails for each comment, and point to the section you are commenting on using a URL.
Some links on this page point to repositories or pages to which information will be added over time. Initially, the link may produce no results, but as issues, tests, etc. are created they will show up.
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Introduction
Contributors
The initial version of this document was prepared by Richard Ishida.
See also the GitHub contributors list for the Mongolian Language Enablement project, and the discussions related to Mongolian script.
About this document
This document points to resources for Mongolian script layout and text support on the Web and in eBooks. These resources provide information for developers of Web technologies such as CSS, HTML and digital publications, and for application developers, about how to support languages written using the Mongolian script. They include requirements, tests, GitHub discussions, type samples, and more,
The document focuses on typographic layout issues. For a deeper understanding of the Mongolian script and how it works see Mongolian Orthography Notes, which includes topics such as: Phonology, Vowels, Consonants, and Numbers.
Gap analysis
This document should be used alongside a separate document, Mongolian Gap Analysis, which describes gaps in language support for users of the Mongolian script, and prioritises and describes the impact of those gaps on the user.
Gap reports are brought to the attention of spec and browser implementers, and are tracked via the Gap Analysis Pipeline. (Filter for Mongolian script items)
Other related resources
The document Language enablement index points to this document and others, and provides a central location for developers and implementers to find information related to various scripts.
The W3C also has a repository with discussion threads related to the Mongolian script, including requests from developers to the user community for information about how scripts/languages work, and a notification system that tracks issues in W3C working groups related to the Mongolian script. See a list of unresolved questions for Mongolian experts. Each section below points to related discussions. See also the repository home page.
Mongolian script overview
The Mongolian script is an alphabet, ie. a writing system in which both consonants and vowels are indicated.
Modern Mongolian can be written using a subset of the letters available in the Mongolian Unicode block. The remainder are used for writing Todo, Sibe, and Manchu, or for writing foriegn words, especially in Tibetan and Sanskrit.
Mongolian text runs top to bottom in vertical lines and (unusually) the lines flow left to right.
The script is cursive, ie. letters in a word are joined. All letters join both on the left and right.
Words are separated by spaces, but also contain narrow spaces that precede suffixes and may produce shaping differences to the surrounding letters. These are part of the word, and the parts on either side should not be separated.
Modern Mongolian uses 16 basic consonant letters and 11 more for representing foreign sounds.
In the Traditional Mongolian alphabet vowels are written using 8 vowel letters, including one for foreign sounds.Mongolian has separate code points for each sound in Mongolian, but many of these look indistinguishable from each other when rendered. This creates difficulties for novices to reproduce Mongolian text without access to the source..
Vowel reduction is a significant feature of Mongolian. Non-initial short vowels are reduced to vestiges or to zero, and non-initial long vowels in the orthography are reduced to short vowel length.
Vowel harmony is another key feature, grouping vowels in a way that indicates a front or back position for the tongue root (ATR).
The script is monocameral.
There is a set of Mongolian digits.
All topics
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
Text direction
Writing mode
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian Layout Requirements: Vertical text
- Mongolian (Traditional Mongolian) Orthography Notes: Text direction
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Bidirectional text
Not applicable.
Glyph shaping & positioning
Fonts & font styles
- Requirements
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Context-based shaping & positioning
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian (Traditional Mongolian) Orthography Notes: Context-based shaping & positioning
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Cursive text
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian (Traditional Mongolian) Orthography Notes: Cursive shaping
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Letterform slopes, weights, & italics
- Requirements
-
- tbd
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Case & other character transforms
Not applicable.
Typographic units
Characters & encoding
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian (Traditional Mongolian) Orthography Notes: Vowels • Consonants
- Character usage
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Grapheme/word segmentation & selection
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian Layout Requirements: Grapheme/word segmentation & selection
- Mongolian (Traditional Mongolian) Orthography Notes: Word boundaries
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Punctuation & inline features
Phrase & section boundaries
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian Layout Requirements: Phrase & section boundaries
- Mongolian (Traditional Mongolian) Orthography Notes: Phrase & section boundaries
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
-
- W3C type samples
- r12a type samples: phrases • bracketing
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Quotations & citations
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian (Traditional Mongolian) Orthography Notes: Quotations & citations
- Wikipedia: Quotation mark
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Emphasis & highlighting
- Requirements
-
- tbd
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Abbreviation, ellipsis & repetition
- Requirements
-
- tbd
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Inline notes & annotations
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian (Traditional Mongolian) Orthography Notes: Inline notes & annotations
- Use Cases & Exploratory Approaches for Ruby Markup
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Other text decoration & inline features
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian Layout Requirements: Text decoration & other inline features
- Mongolian (Traditional Mongolian) Orthography Notes: Text decoration & other inline features
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Data formats & numbers
- Requirements
-
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Line & paragraph layout
Line breaking & hyphenation
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian Layout Requirements: Line breaking & hyphenation
- Mongolian (Traditional Mongolian) Orthography Notes: Line breaking & hyphenation
- Approaches to line-breaking
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Text alignment & justification
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian Layout Requirements: Text alignment & justification
- Mongolian (Traditional Mongolian) Orthography Notes: Text alignment & justification
- Approaches to full justification
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Text spacing
- Requirements
-
- tbd
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Baselines, line height, etc.
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian Layout Requirements: Baselines, line height, etc
- Mongolian (Traditional Mongolian) Orthography Notes: Baselines, line height, etc.
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Lists, counters, etc.
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian Layout Requirements: Lists, counters, etc
- Mongolian (Traditional Mongolian) Orthography Notes: Counters, lists, etc.
- Ready-made Counter Styles: Mongolian
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Styling initials
- Requirements
-
- tbd
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Page & book layout
General page layout & progression
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian Layout Requirements: General page layout & progression
- Mongolian (Traditional Mongolian) Orthography Notes: General page layout & progression
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Grids & tables
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian Layout Requirements: Grids & tables
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Footnotes, endnotes, etc
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian Layout Requirements: Notes (Footnote, Endnote)
- GitHub discussions
- Type samples
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Page headers, footers, etc
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian Layout Requirements: Page headers, footers, etc
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-
Forms & user interaction
- Requirements
-
- Mongolian Layout Requirements: Forms & user interaction
- Mongolian (Traditional Mongolian) Orthography Notes: Forms & user interaction
- GitHub discussions
- Tests
-
- Exploratory/interactive test results (tbc)
- Exploratory/interactive test repo (tbc)
- Gap analysis
- Specification links
-