nonRomanforeign

NonRomanforeign is a label used in some linguistic, software localization, and data-management contexts to describe text that comes from languages written in non-Roman scripts and is encountered in environments dominated by the Latin alphabet. The phrase is not a formal linguistic category, and its usage varies by organization. In practice, nonRomanforeign can help identify items that require special handling, such as Unicode support, script-specific fonts, bidirectional rendering, or transliteration.

In data schemas, nonRomanforeign may mark fields containing foreign terms, loanwords, or proper names written in scripts such as Cyrillic, Arabic, Devanagari, Chinese characters, Hangul, Greek, Hebrew, or Thai. This label can accompany other metadata like language codes, script codes, or transliteration rules.

Challenges associated with nonRomanforeign include correct rendering on user interfaces, text normalization, directionality for right-to-left scripts, and consistent transliteration or transliteration choices across platforms. Compatibility with search, indexing, and sorting can also be complex when non-Roman text appears alongside Roman text.

Critics note that the term can be vague or outdated, and many prefer more precise descriptors based on exact language or script (for example, "Arabic script" or "CJK characters"). When used, nonRomanforeign should be accompanied by explicit language and script information to avoid ambiguity.

See also: Unicode, localization, internationalization, transliteration, scripts and fonts.