Encoding right-to-left script in TEI-XML is a hassle unless one uses an editor that hides away the tags. The problem arises when element names in Latin script interrupt the right-to-left rendering on the editor screen by the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm. (Davis et al. 2022) However, hiding the tags is not the only solution. With <altIdent> TEI offers a means for declaring alternative names for elements and attributes: names in another language and even in another script. Thus, we can have valid right-to-left-only TEI documents in XML version 1.1, which are readable and editable while tags are visible.
However, using <altIdent> quickly feels like introducing entropy to the schema. Therefore, the paper suggests not to translate, but to transliterate identifiers. Compared to translation, transliteration is a mechanical process. Implementations exist. Thus, generating a full ODD with element and attribute aliases in Arabic, Syriac, Hebrew, etc. script becomes simple and fast. It can be pre-built so that the hurdle for encoding non-western script in TEI becomes much lower. The from the paper’s title is a tag transliterated to Syriac script: ܬܸ݂.