Hi,

I'm dedicating a local branch to developing this proof of concept and
testing it in my workflow, so far with good results. The basic idea is
to provide Org with multilingual features and various methods for
selecting languages.

The inline-language-block is intended for small segments of text in a
language other than the main language. They can span several lines but
not more than a paragraph. They can be used for in-line textual quotes,
glosses, etc. They are constructions equivalent to, for example, LaTeX
\foreignlanguage{french}{text} or HTML <span lang=fr>text</span>.

I have thought of a syntax that is as least intrusive as possible, so as
not to make reading uncomfortable. I have tried the following:

:fr{some text in French} :it{some text in Italian} :la{some text in Latin}

You can also use a literal term instead of a language code:

:klingon!{some text in Klingon}

The blocks can be nested:

:klingon!{Some text in Klingon with :it{some text in Italian}}

And they may include other elements:

:el{Some text in Greek with a {{{macro}}} and a [[link]]}

To this end, I have defined the following element:

#+begin_src emacs-lisp
(defun org-element-inline-language-block-parser ()
  "Parse inline language block at point.

When at an inline language block, return a new syntax node of
`inline-language-block' type containing `:begin', `:end',
`:type', `:contents-begin', `:contents-end' and `:post-blank' as
properties.  Otherwise, return nil.

Assume point is at the beginning of the block."
  (save-excursion
    (when (looking-at ":\\([A-Za-z!]+\\){")
      (goto-char (match-end 0))
      (let* ((begin (match-beginning 0))
             (contents-begin (match-end 0))
             (type (org-element--get-cached-string
                    (match-string-no-properties 1)))
             (contents-end
              (progn
                (goto-char (- contents-begin 1))
                (org-element--parse-paired-brackets ?\{)
                (- (point) 1)))
             (post-blank (skip-chars-forward " \t"))
             (end (point)))
        (when contents-end
          (org-element-create
           'inline-language-block
           (list :type type
                 :contents-begin contents-begin
                 :contents-end contents-end
                 :begin begin
                 :end end
                 :post-blank post-blank)))))))

(defun org-element-inline-language-block-interpreter (inline-language-block contents)
  "Interpret INLINE LANGUAGE BLOCK object as Org syntax."
  (format ":%s{%s}"
          (org-element-property :type inline-language-block)
          contents))
#+end_src

And, for now, this function for ox-latex:

#+begin_src emacs-lisp
(defun org-latex-inline-language-block (inline-language-block contents info)
  "Transcode an INLINE LANGUAGE BLOCK element from Org to LaTeX.
CONTENTS holds the contents of the block.  INFO is a plist
holding contextual information."
  (let ((type (org-element-property :type inline-language-block)))
    (if (string-match-p "!" type)
        (format "\\foreignlanguage{%s}{%s}"
                (replace-regexp-in-string "!" "" type)
                contents)
      (let* ((plist (cdr
                     (assoc type org-latex-language-alist)))
             (language (plist-get plist :babel))
             (language-ini-only (plist-get plist :babel-ini-only))
             (language-ini-alt (plist-get plist :babel-ini-alt))
             (lang (or language language-ini-only language-ini-alt)))
        (format "\\foreignlanguage{%s}{%s}" lang contents)))))
#+end_src

Opinions, suggestions, feedback, ideas?

Best regards,

Juan Manuel

--
Juan Manuel Macías -- Composición tipográfica, tratamiento de datos, diseño editorial y ortotipografía