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Dear Vint,<br><br>
<font size=2>I cannot avoid characterizing the attached mails as "ad
linguam" and "ad homines". I hope they stop. Happily,
Vaggelis just raised equivalent problems in the Greek language and I
hope, therefore, that we may start working on his problem first, giving
me time in turn to poll French people on what they want to do. I recall
that the situation is not for this WG to decide what French speakers
should do, but rather how French speakers will adapt the Internet to
their individual needs and to their language if they are not supported.
<br><br>
This being said, these mails show that half-knowledge is dangerous and
worse than ignorance. They illustrate why Unicode is not already
appropriate for supporting the Intersem (Semantic and Multilingual
International Network). Unicode only considers upper and lower cases and
titles. Assuming that big caps are the same as small caps. In French, at
least, (and I understand in some other languages such as in Greek) this
is not the case. This confusion is also seen in the English language,
which translates the French "majuscule" as "capital",
while in French for upper-case means "capitale". The same,
Unicode and keyboards do not support the breves and macrons (macrons are
well accepted now in press titles).<br><br>
Hence, the confusion brought about by Martin. For example, the French
Postal Service requests people to use big "capitale" letters,
which do not have accents. But in good orthography, the first letter may
be a "majuscule" and in that case should have an accent in
non-postal usage. This should be considered in the RFCs on civic
addressing.<br><br>
Hence, the confusion brought about by Mark. The reference he makes to
"Le Monde" is a well known case that demonstrates exactly the
opposite. The "majuscule" is "S" in
"sériie" actually and the rest of the word is in small caps
(which are capitalized lower case). In such a case, an accent is accepted
in French speaking countries (e.g. Switzerland) where
"majuscules" are orthographically not accentuated.<br><br>
Hence, the confusion brought about by Kenneth. He also confuses
"majuscules" and "capitales". "Majuscules"
must always (and them only) be in upper-case. In proper language, they
SHOULD be accentuated. However, when this is not possible (keyboard,
font, handwriting) they MUST at least be in upper case.<br><br>
I note here that these usages that carry a precise semantic are not 2,500
years old as in the Greek but they are certainly more than 250 years old.
The question is: "is IDNA going to respect the RFC and experts'
fancies more than people's actual usage"? <br><br>
The implication of Michel Suignard and the scornful style of these three
mails in turn lead me to think that, unfortunately, their position is not
wrong regarding multilinguistics, a misled network architecture, or
protocol confusion, but rather clearly of economic intelligence. I have
nothing to object to in this case, in which I consider it as fully
illustrating IAB's RFC 3869. This is only something that will make users
more precautious about IDNA and, therefore, another difficulty to
eventually be addressed. <br><br>
Multilinguistics is not a discipline that is easily applied!<br>
</font>jfc<br><br>
At 06:02 25/02/2009, Martin Duerst wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">This is a well-known phenomenon.
French people get told that there<br>
are no accents on upper-case letters in school, and then live on
with<br>
that belief. Thereafter, they regularly see upper-case letters with<br>
accents, but they don't realize that they might have to change their<br>
beliefs because reading these upper-case letters with accents
happens<br>
unconciously. Some even might claim that something is wrong when<br>
somebody shows them an example of an upper-case letter with an<br>
accent.<br><br>
The best way to confirm that accents can and do appear on upper-case<br>
letters is to check the "Petit Robert", the most widely
used<br>
French-French dictionary.<br><br>
Regards, Martin.<br><br>
P.S.: Effects such as the above are one reason why
Internationalization<br>
is difficult. It's not enough to ask a few
native speakers/writers,<br>
one has to find out who the real experts
are and confirm things<br>
in the field with an open eye.<br><br>
P.P.S.: The above is not just heresay, I had several such
experiences<br>
with relatives of
mine.<br><br>
<br>
At 06:22 09/02/25, Mark Davis wrote:<br>
>Moreover, the supposedly required deaccenting of uppercase French
appears to be a canard. Not only is it contested by internationalization
experts like Michel Suignard, but even casual browsing will find
respectable usage of uppercase with accents such as:<br>
><br>
><<a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/%3Ehttp://www.lemonde.fr/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.lemonde.fr/>http://www.lemonde.fr/</a><br>
><br>
>eg on that page "LE MONDE DES S$B%F13(BIES", plus the
tabs.<br>
><br>
>Mark<br>
><br>
><br>
>On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 13:12, Kenneth Whistler
<<<a href="mailto:kenw@sybase.com" eudora="autourl">
mailto:kenw@sybase.com</a>>kenw@sybase.com> wrote:<br>
>>jfc said:<br>
>><br>
>>> May I add that French supports calls for uper cases NOT to
be folded<br>
>>> but to be supported as characters by their own.<br>
>>> This means that
"<<a href="http://ecole.fr>ecole.fr/" eudora="autourl">
http://ecole.fr>ecole.fr</a>",
"$B%F&D%%(B<<a href="http://cole.fr>cole.fr/" eudora="autourl">
http://cole.fr>cole.fr</a>" and "Ecole.fr" are to be
three<br>
>>> different domain names.<br>
>><br>
>>which is just silly. The implication of that is that the<br>
>>following would also be different domain names:<br>
>><br>
>>eCole.fr<br>
>>ecOle.fr<br>
>>ecoLe.fr<br>
>>ecolE.fr<br>
>>ECole.fr<br>
>>EcOle.fr<br>
>>EcoLe.fr<br>
>>EcolE.fr<br>
>>ECOle.fr<br>
>>ECoLe.fr<br>
>>EColE.fr<br>
>><br>
>>etc., etc., for 32 different strings, before even starting<br>
>>to consider the accent folding issues.<br>
>><br>
>>This is incompatible both with existing ASCII domain name<br>
>>usage *and* with IDNA 2003 domain name usage. And it<br>
>>would result in a combinatorial bundling nightmare requiring<br>
>>2^n items be bundled for every n Latin (or Greek or
Cyrillic)<br>
>>letter in a domain name.<br>
>><br>
>>And no, you cannot get away with claiming this would only<br>
>>apply to the first letter of a domain name, because there<br>
>>is no mechanism in IDNA for parsing out words in domain<br>
>>name labels, viz.:<br>
>><br>
>><<a href="http://dangerecole.blogspot.com/%3Ehttp://dangerecole.blogspot.com/" eudora="autourl">
http://dangerecole.blogspot.com/>http://dangerecole.blogspot.com/</a>
<br>
>><br>
>>as opposed to:<br>
>><br>
>><<a href="http://www.ecoleprinceton.org/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.ecoleprinceton.org/</a>
><a href="http://www.ecoleprinceton.org/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.ecoleprinceton.org/</a><br>
>><br>
>>or<br>
>><br>
>><<a href="http://www.ecolephilippegaulier.com/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.ecolephilippegaulier.com/</a>
><a href="http://www.ecolephilippegaulier.com/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.ecolephilippegaulier.com/</a><br>
>><br>
>>--Ken<br>
>><br>
>>_______________________________________________<br>
>>Idna-update mailing list<br>
>><<a href="mailto:Idna-update@alvestrand.no" eudora="autourl">
mailto:Idna-update@alvestrand.no</a>>Idna-update@alvestrand.no<br>
>><a href="http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/idna-update" eudora="autourl">
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/idna-update</a><br>
><br>
>_______________________________________________<br>
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>Idna-update@alvestrand.no<br>
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<br>
#-#-# Martin J. Du"rst, Assoc. Professor, Aoyama Gakuin
University<br>
#-#-#
<a href="http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp /" eudora="autourl">
http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp </a>
<a href="mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp%A0%A0" eudora="autourl">
mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp </a> <br><br>
<br>
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