Index Translation and Localization Are there any special internationalization and localization issues for indexing?
It’s commonly recommended that indexes not be translated between languages. There are too many differences between languages and cultures to make translation a perfect scenario. In fact, as an extreme case it should be noted that traditional French textbooks don’t have indexes; instead they rely on complicated tables of contents. (The best explanation I’ve heard is that this decision is an offshoot of France’s desire to maintain cultural identity, and consequently control access.) When you’re not translating languages within similar alphabets — as when English is translated to Japanese — the very organization structure changes. And finally, in addition to language-related differences, consider also that the audiences might be different enough to affect your decisions over what belongs in the index in the first place. If you are simply writing keywords, however, translation is more likely. Without the relationships, alphabetization, and word-splitting occasions of a whole index, words
