Re: ZWJ, ZWNJ and VS in Latin and other Greek-derived scripts

From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Fri Feb 02 2007 - 19:36:14 CST

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    From: +ACI-Richard Wordingham+ACI- +ADw-richard.wordingham+AEA-ntlworld.com+AD4-
    +AD4- Thanks. I was actually wondering how one should tag them, following through
    +AD4- Ruszlan's suggestion that English words ligating 'ae' and 'oe' should be
    +AD4- tagged as Latin or French. But if 'la-GB' forces ligation by default, what
    +AD4- was I using in school?

    Remember that French does not mandate ligation of ae and oe by default. Like in English, there are words where ligation is required orthographically, and others where it is invalid (the most common cases shown below):

    +ACo- +ACI-oeuf+ACI-, +ACI-oeil+ACI-, +ACI-boeuf+ACI-, +ACI-coeloquinte+ACI-, +ACI-coeur+ACI-, +ACI-choeur+ACI- : ligation of 'oe' normally required (because the syllable break is prohibited orthographically +ACoAKg-and+ACoAKg- phonetically), however there's generally no ambiguity, so it is considered acceptable to not render this ligation.
    +ACo- +ACI-coexister+ACI-, +ACI-co+AOk-quipier+ACI- : ligation of 'oe' prohibited (there's a syllable break between the two vowels, it is not a digraph)

    The cases where +ACI-ae+ACI- ligation occur in French are extremely rare, except for some traditional technical terms in the judiciary vocabulary, or in biology, with terms directly derived from the latin language tradition, and most often, these ligatures that were recommanded typographically are not required orthographically, as these cases have been replaced by converting the +ACI-ae+ACI- ligature into +ACI-e with acute accent+ACI- since long where it is now the normal French orthography+ADs- so even in cases where the +ACI-ae+ACI- ligature would be possible, it is generally not performed, and so the +ACI-ae+ACI- ligature is no more considered part of the French alphabet, unlike the +ACI-oe+ACI- ligature which remains very active.

    The most +ACI-common+ACI- exception is in the word +ACI-caetera+ACI- in the Latin expression +ACI-et caetera+ACI-, however, everybody abbreviates it as +ACI-etc.+ACI- when writing it (the expressions is extremely rarely shown unabbreviated, and if it occurs, the ligation may not be explicitly visible+ADs- some are also writing it +ACI-et c+AOk-t+AOk-ra+ACI- without the ligature, but the accent instead, and this is considered as an acceptable orthography, which follows the tradition of converting all Latin +ACI-ae+ACI- occurences into French +ACIA6QAi-).

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