From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Wed Oct 26 2005 - 10:46:06 CST
From: "Mark Davis" <mark.davis@icu-project.org>
> > Unicode people can't seem to agree whether to use the recommanded
> > orthography or not.
>
> We received a bug report on *'Sun Oct 23 11:09:17 2005'
> (http://dev.icu-project.org/cgi-bin/locale-bugs?findid=901) that *"Iles d’Åland"
> (one code) uses a different style than the others. This is probably due to
> the fact that AX was very recently encoded, and the translator used the
> newer orthography for that name. Clearly there should be consistency among
> the names, but CLDR goes through a process of design, data collection,
> vetting, and then release (http://www.unicode.org/cldr/), with the next
> release expected at the end of next March. Simply because a bug is not
> fixed and released within 3 days, no matter how vital it is, doesn't mean
> that "Unicode people can't seem to agree whether to use...".
Yes, but ALL elements in the CLDR were included AFTER the 1990 reform. As
the CLDR is meant to be a recommandation, it should also apply the 1990
French recommandation (applied at least in France, Belgium, Switzerland,
Canada) at the time it was published. So this is really a bug since the
origin of the data published by the CLDR. There are much enough normative
references about this reform approved since long.
> BTW, There appear to be plenty of post-1990 instances of Îles in
> customary usage. For example, at lemonde.fr, there are
> *190 éléments* publiés "*depuis un mois*" avec le(s) mot(s) ou
> expression(s) "*Îles*" dans "*tout l'élément*" et classés par
> "*pertinence*".
The number of occurences does not matter. They may use old orthographic
correctors which still don't implement the reform. Anyway, the reform does
not say that the old orthography is incorrect. So both orthographies will
continue to coexist for some time, until the orthographic correctors are all
upgraded, and the usage progressively makes the orthography without the
circumflex the most frequent. Some time in the future, the orthography
without the circumflex will become normative, when the frequency of usage
will have been really reversed.
Note that in every day use, most occurences are already dropping the
circumflex, even for texts written by educated people that still ignore the
existence of the 1990 reform. When they are told that their orthography is
wrong, they will discover that reform and will then see that their
orthography is in fact correct, so they will continue using it.
The most frequent use of words with circumflexes over i and u comes from
sources that use strong orthographic checkers, such as journalists working
for serious papers. It's not the journalist himself that imposes the
orthography but the orthographic checker. With the time, these journalists
get used to use only the orthography with the circumflex, so this is a
perverse effect of the checker that modifies the perception of the language.
For book writers however, their use of the circumflex may be deliberate
(because the text in placed in a period of time that predates this reform),
or is applied unilateraly by their publisher that also use old spell
checkers at composition time: if the authors don't remark this change made
by the publisher, in the draft pint they receive before the effective
publication, the book will use the old orthography. Serious publishers use
updated spellcheckers and know the reform, so they should keep the
orthography used by their authors whatever choice they made.
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