Bilingual Welsh-English Websites

In terms of the visitor's navigation through the site, the Bwrdd-yr-Iaith brochure has several guidelines for good practice in bilingual website design. A bilingual front page of the site is of paramount concern-one which offers a clear choice of Welsh or English. Another option is to register bilingual domain names or domain names in both Welsh and English; a good example of this is www.cymruarywe.org and www.walesontheweb.org . Every page should offer an easy switch between languages without having to return to the home page (i.e., through parallel directory structure). Corresponding versions of pages should be of equally high quality and accuracy.

Alternatively, thoroughly bilingual pages must give equal treatment to each language while ensuring readability and identification of both; this can be accomplished through tasteful use of different background colors, text colors, or fonts according to the Bilingual Design guidelines. The most important aspect of this is not giving higher prominence to one or the other language, such as putting the Welsh language in a smaller font. Equality of the languages on a bilingual page can also be achieved through layout-side-by-side columns, for example.

It is plain to see that putting together a bilingual site of real quality is a complex endeavor; I've only given you a summary of the comprehensive Bwrdd-yr-Iaith guidelines (http://www.bwrdd-yr-iaith.org.uk/en/advi... It is necessary to take into account all of these factors when designing a website in Welsh and English. And the bar is being raised ever higher for exemplary bilingual sites. Design firms such as Design Wales (http://www.designwales.org/) and this year's Bilingual Design Awards winner for new media, Imaginet, are even now setting the standards for the future of bilingual design in Wales. But clearly, the great strides being made in the realm of Welsh-English bilingual websites will be of greatest benefit to the users of the sites, in Wales and beyond.

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