Re: Tentative Definition of Casefolding

From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Sun Jun 11 2006 - 13:30:57 CDT

  • Next message: Richard Wordingham: "Re: Tentative Definition of Casefolding"

    From: "Richard Wordingham" <richard.wordingham@ntlworld.com>
    > Yes, but consider titlecasing 'ffrench' in the appropriate English locale!
    > In some traditions it titlecases to 'ffrench', not 'Ffrench'. Casing
    > contexts are not entirely restricted to *default* grapheme clusters, just
    > the ones mention in TUS.

    Huh? There's no French word that starts with a double F, so a double-f ligature (which has compatibility equivalence with <f, f>) will not occur in positions where titlecasing applies, not even in English.

    "Ffrench" or "Ffrançais" or "ffrench" or "ffrançais" do not exist in French! And there's no titlecasing in the middle of a word in French.

    The French word for French is "français(e)(s)" (adjective, or noun when it is the language name) or "Français(e)(s)" (with a capital, for designating a person). This type of word where capitalized words are still taking feminine and/or plural marks is called a "gentilé" in French.

    The capitalization of gentilés (used to designate persons where the common masculine noun "homme(s)"=man/men or common feminine noun "femme(s)"=woman/women is implicit) does not make it a proper name (because all proper names are unvariable in French (except for a possible leading article whose capitalization and derivation follows the normal grammatical rules for common words instead of the rules for proper names), This capitalization is a grammatical/orthographic rule according to the intended meaningand helps disambiguating sentences where a gentilé noun is further qualified by a gentilé adjective.

    Gentilés are used in French for marking the nationality or the origin of persons (a city, a traditional cultural people, a region, a ethnic group, ...), but not for language names.

    The language adjectives qualifying a person or community speaking that language end with "-(o)phone", for example:
    * "francophone" for qualifying French-speaking persons or communities (personnes parlant "français")
    * "germanophone" for qualifying German-speaking persons or communities (personnes parlant "allemand")
    * "hispanophone" for qualifying Spanish-speaking persons or communities (personnes parlant "espagnol")
    Note that these adjectives sometimes use different radicals than gentilé names and adjectives.



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