Tips n Tracks

What is a markup language?

A markup language combines text and extra information about the text. The extra information, for example about the text’s structure or presentation, is expressed using markup, which is intermingled with the primary text.

The term “markup” is derived from the traditional publishing practice of “marking up” a manuscript, which is, adding symbolic printer’s instructions in the margins of a paper manuscript. markup Language indicate what typeface, style, and size should be applied to each part of a manuscript or data.

XML is a relatively new markup language, but it is a subset of, and is based upon a mature markup language called Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML).

Some examples of markup languages are…

• SGML – Standard Generalized Markup Language
• HTML – Hypertext Markup Language
• XML – Extensible Markup Language
• XHTML – Extensible Hypertext Markup Language

All of these markup languages are for metadata, but SGML and XML may be further considered meta-languages, since they can be used to create other metadata languages.