On Tue, 19 Dec 2006, Paul Nelson (ATC) wrote:

> Because the Hebrew is a RTL script, the addition of the span does
> nothing to change the layout.

Technically, it's the formal directionality properties of _characters_ 
that matter here, by standards and specifications. They in turn have been 
defined to reflect the nature of scripts, of course.

By the way, I find the examples in the HTML 4.01 specification confusing, 
since it uses strings like HEBREW2 (consisting of Latin letters) instead 
of actual Hebrew characters. In the presentation of the intended correct 
rendering, the strings are spelled backwards, creating the impression of
GNIREDNER GNORW. Using a few easy Hebrew characters, explained in the 
text, would be more suitable.

-- 
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/