Writing in Your Language

LokaScript lets you write hyperscript commands in 24 languages.
The runtime translates your code to English before execution —
your existing English code continues to work unchanged.

Supported Languages

LokaScript supports three word-order families:

Word Order Languages
SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Hebrew, Indonesian, Malay, Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, Swahili
SOV (Subject-Object-Verb) Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Hindi, Bengali, Quechua
VSO (Verb-Subject-Object) Arabic, Tagalog

Each language's word order comes from its grammar profile — check any of them
with getProfile(lang).wordOrder from @lokascript/i18n. Modern Hebrew is
treated as SVO here, which is what its profile encodes, even though Biblical
Hebrew is classically described as VSO.

How to Specify Language

Language is resolved in priority order:

1. Per-element with data-lang

<button _="on click alternar .active" data-lang="es">
  Spanish toggle
</button>

2. Inherited with data-hyperscript-lang

All children inherit the language:

<div data-hyperscript-lang="ja">
  <button _="on click .active を 切り替え">Toggle</button>
  <button _="on click .highlight を 追加">Add</button>
</div>

3. Document-level with <html lang>

<html lang="fr">
  <!-- All hyperscript on this page defaults to French -->
  <button _="on click basculer .active">Basculer</button>
</html>

English (en) and unresolved languages pass through without
translation.

The Same Command in Different Languages

Toggle (the most common command)

-- English (SVO): verb object
on click toggle .active

-- Spanish (SVO): verb object
on click alternar .active

-- Japanese (SOV): object particle verb
on click .active を 切り替え

-- Korean (SOV): object particle verb
on click .active 을 토글

-- Arabic (VSO): verb object
on click بدّل .active

Notice how SVO languages keep verb-then-object order, while
SOV languages put the object before the verb with a particle
marker.

Add with a target

-- English
on click add .highlight to #box

-- French
on click ajouter .highlight sur #box

-- Japanese
on click #box に .highlight を 追加

-- Korean
on click #box 에 .highlight 을 추가

Put text into an element

-- English
on click put "Hello" into #output

-- Spanish
on click poner "Hola" en #output

-- Japanese
on click "Hello" を #output に 置く

-- French
on click mettre "Bonjour" sur #output

What Translates and What Stays in English

Translates:

  • Command keywords: toggle, add, remove, put, set, etc.
  • Prepositions/particles: on, into, from, to
  • References: me, my, it
  • Logical keywords: if, then, else, and, or

Stays in English:

  • CSS selectors: .active, #count, .my-class
  • HTML attributes: innerHTML, value, disabled
  • JavaScript operators: >, +, ==
  • String literals: "Hello"
  • Numbers: 5, 300
  • Feature keywords: def, worker (use English for these)

Compound Commands

Chain commands with then (or its translated equivalent):

-- English
on click add .highlight to #box then put "Done!" into #msg

-- Spanish
on click agregar .highlight en #box then poner "Listo!" en #msg

Next Steps

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