Multilingual Controlled Vocabulary

A controlled vocabulary that provides equivalent terms across multiple languages, enabling cross-lingual search, classification, and knowledge sharing.

Structure

• Concept-Based: Languages are expressions of underlying concepts
• Equivalence Mapping: Term A (English) = Term B (French) = Term C (German)
• Hierarchy Preserved: Parent-child relationships hold across languages
• Cultural Adaptation: Some concepts don’t translate directly

Design Challenges

No Perfect Translation: Some concepts exist in one language but not another Regional Variation: Same language, different terminology (US/UK English) Domain Terminology: Technical terms may differ by linguistic community Maintenance Burden: Updates must propagate across all language versions

Benefits

• Global content findability
• Cross-border knowledge sharing
• Consistent classification regardless of language
• Foundation for machine translation in domain

Implementation Patterns

• Preferred term per language per concept
• Scope notes explaining cultural context
• Entry vocabulary capturing regional variants
• Cross-references to authoritative sources

Related: 02-molecule—taxonomy-design, 06-molecule—ontology-design-patterns