Why do microformats use English terms for property names?
Similar to how HTML uses English words like “class”, “span” or “head”, microformats re-uses English words for property names. As microformats property names are based on existing standards (see process, and naming-principles), this is another problem that is far outside the scope of microformats. As Ryan King put it, this is a pre-existing (unsolved) “problem” with English-based HTML, the English-based CSS, the English-based HTTP and so on. Note that this is NOT about the internationalization of the content and data itself – which is of course an excellent goal, advocated and promoted by microformats and the standards they are based on (e.g. W3C, IETF). This is purely about the names of the properties (and enumerated values) in the formats. See also internationalization and the en-US FAQ: why not use other spellings and languages for properties regarding the question of alternate (non-English) names in other (natural) languages, and mappings.
