Index: share/mk/doc.commands.mk
===================================================================
--- share/mk/doc.commands.mk
+++ share/mk/doc.commands.mk
@@ -70,8 +70,16 @@
 HTML2TXT?=	${PREFIX}/bin/links
 HTML2TXTOPTS?=	-dump ${HTML2TXTFLAGS}
 
+ITSTOOL?=	${PREFIX}/bin/itstool
+
 JING?=		${PREFIX}/bin/jing
 
+MSGFMT?=	${PREFIX}/bin/msgfmt
+MSGMERGE?=	${PREFIX}/bin/msgmerge
+
+PO4AGETTEXTIZE?=	${PREFIX}/bin/po4a-gettextize
+PO4ATRANSLATE?=		${PREFIX}/bin/po4a-translate
+
 XMLLINT?=	${PREFIX}/bin/xmllint
 XSLTPROC?=	${PREFIX}/bin/xsltproc
 
Index: share/mk/doc.docbook.mk
===================================================================
--- share/mk/doc.docbook.mk
+++ share/mk/doc.docbook.mk
@@ -131,7 +131,7 @@
 LOCAL_CSS_SHEET= ${CSS_SHEET:T}
 .endif
 
-CLEANFILES+= ${DOC}.parsed.xml ${DOC}.parsed.print.xml
+CLEANFILES+= ${DOC}.parsed.xml ${DOC}.parsed.print.xml ${DOC}.translate.xml
 
 .if ${FORMATS:R:Mhtml-split} && ${FORMATS:R:Mhtml}
 XSLTPROCOPTS+=	--param docformatnav "'1'"
@@ -269,6 +269,52 @@
 	${SED} 's|@@URL_RELPREFIX@@|http://www.FreeBSD.org|g' < ${.TARGET} > ${DOC}.parsed.print.xml
 	${SED} -i '' -e 's|@@URL_RELPREFIX@@|../../../..|g' ${.TARGET}
 
+# translation -------------------------------------------------------
+
+# choice of PO software, po4a or itstool
+POSOFT?=	po4a
+POFILE?=	${LANGCODE:C/_.*$//}
+
+# create a po file for translations
+po ${POFILE}.po: ${XML_INCLUDES:S/${LANGCODE}/en_US.ISO8859-1/}
+	# create the normalized translation file
+	@${XMLLINT} --nonet --valid --xinclude \
+	    ${MASTERDOC:S/${LANGCODE}/en_US.ISO8859-1/} > ${DOC}.translate.tmp
+	# remove redundant xmlns:xlink attributes
+	# ** this needs to be fixed to work with --nonet **
+	@${XMLLINT} --nocatalogs --nsclean ${DOC}.translate.tmp > ${DOC}.translate.xml 2>/dev/null
+	@${RM} ${DOC}.translate.tmp
+	# generate the PO file from the normalized file
+.if ${POSOFT:Mpo4a}
+	@${PO4AGETTEXTIZE} -p ${POFILE}.po.tmp -m ${DOC}.translate.xml -f docbook \
+	  -M UTF-8 -L UTF-8 --copyright-holder 'not set'
+.elif ${POSOFT:Mitstool}
+	@${ITSTOOL} -k -o ${POFILE}.po.tmp ${DOC}.translate.xml
+.else
+.error "\"${POSOFT}\" not recognized, set POSOFT to po4a or itstool"
+.endif
+	# if a PO file is already present, merge it
+	# this needs thought, need to delete old translations
+	# that are no longer needed by the English document
+	@( if [ -f "${POFILE}.po" ]; then \
+		echo "${POFILE}.po exists, merging" ; \
+		${MSGMERGE} -o ${POFILE}.po.new ${POFILE}.po ${POFILE}.po.tmp ; \
+		${MV} ${POFILE}.po.new ${POFILE}.po ; \
+		${RM} ${POFILE}.po.tmp ; \
+	  else \
+	   	${MV} ${POFILE}.po.tmp ${POFILE}.po ; \
+	  fi )
+
+tran:	${POFILE}.po
+.if ${POSOFT:Mpo4a}
+	@${PO4ATRANSLATE} -p ${POFILE}.po -f docbook -m ${DOC}.translate.xml \
+	  -M UTF-8 -L UTF-8 -l ${DOC}.xml -k 0
+.elif ${POSOFT:Mitstool}
+	@${ITSTOOL} -k -l ${LANGCODE:S/_.*//} -m ${POFILE}.mo -o ${DOC}.xml ${DOC}.translate.xml
+.else
+.error "\"${POSOFT}\" not recognized, set POSOFT to po4a or itstool"
+.endif
+
 # XHTML -------------------------------------------------------------
 
 index.html: ${DOC}.parsed.xml ${LOCAL_IMAGES_LIB} ${LOCAL_IMAGES_PNG} \