Changed the description: This is a problem for LTR languages, too. If my interface language in Commons is Hebrew, but for whatever reason i watch a clip with subtitles in English or Italian, the subtitles are currently shown RTL and it is wrong.

If the subtitles are an HTML element, they should always have lang="XX" dir="XXX" - lang is known according to the file name and the dir is known according to the language.

This may be a problem for Azeri, which may be written in Latin and Arabic (and maybe there are still people who write it in Cyrillic) and for several languages of India, which are written in Arabic and in LTR Indian scripts. For these languages an extended code should be used, something like az-Arab / az-Latn.

mdale wrote:

Thanks for the bug report. I have added it as dependency to the deploy timed media handler bug. I will put the fix on the TMH prototype soon: http://prototype.wikimedia.org/timedmedia/Main_Page

Same problem in TimedMediaHandler. I'm just changing the component.

Created attachment 11426
demonstration of the problem

Playing a movie with an RTL interface language. Notice that the full stop is on the left-hand end of the English sentence - that's because the interface language's direction is applied to the subtitles. We know that the language of the subtitles is English, so the ltr direction must be assigned explicitly.

Attached:

jgerber wrote:

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/41573 submitted for review to fix this issue.

mdale:
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