User talk:Andrewa/diacritics

General discussion

(It's a user talk page, so I can use all the headings levels - but if and when I start something in my user space, best to go to the convention and not use the first level, in case it ever gets moved to the project namespace)

The issue of diacritics in article names arises regularly. Some examples:

• Besançon
• flambé

It most recently came up for me in the question of the naming of the Duchy of Oświęcim. It has been proposed that this should be named after Oświęcim, which is fair enough. But the Oświęcim article was moved from Oswiecim, without going through WP:RM but with some previous discussion now at Talk:Oświęcim. This previous discussion focusses on what is correct, whereas WP:NC of course focusses on what is English usage.

It's certainly come up before, with naming of asteroids for example, that was problematic and recurring and may again. See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics), a rejected proposal. Hmmm. Andrewa (talk) 20:02, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Here's how it seems now to me...

• There is some use of diacritics in English, so in terms of WP:NC words like for example flambé should have the accent.
• This usage is:
  • Rare.
  • Restricted to loanwords and names of famous people, places etc.
  • Not even the case with many loanwords (examples needed) and famous names.
• There is a tendency to push the limits of this usage:
  • Speakers of other languages (notably German, Polish, Icelandic, and some varieties of Arabic) sometimes promote the correct usage of diacritics and other typology as practised in the source language on all words loaned from that language. This doesn't neccessarily follow. Nor is this a tendency only of native speakers of the source languages; People who have learned the language because they like it and/or its associated culture can be at least as passionate about it.

Hmmmm still. Andrewa (talk) 14:06, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

See also

• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics), a rejected proposal. Its talk page is also interesting.

Examples

Let's gather some examples

No brainers

ones where the decision seems clear cut

For

article names which clearly should have diacritics

• flambé
• attaché

Against

article names which clearly should not have diacritics, although some English speakers may use them

• Quebec cf Québec and fr:Québec - and despite the Government of Quebec using the accented form even on English-language pages, see http://www.gouv.qc.ca/portail/quebec/pgs/commun/?lang=en ! Maybe a line call instead?
• Iao Valley. This is an interesting one as it went to WP:RM to remove the diacritic, with only one editor opposing the removal.

Line calls

article names that are clearly problematical, some want diacritics and some don't, both with good reasons so there really isn't a good solution

Controversies

Precedents

examples where consensus was reached, for or against - no need to group these, it's obvious from the name which way the decision went!

Active discussions

article names under active and often heated discussion

Sorting

interesting possible examples under investigation

• Attaché - interesting that fr:Attaché doesn't even exist. fr:Attache redirects to an entirely different concept.
• Negligee
• Strauss - ß is not a diacritic but a related issue, thorn (letter) and eth are similar.
• Brassière or brassiere... interesting note at fr:Brassière (lingerie) that in Quebec, the word means bra, but in France it means a related garment that's not a bra because it has no cups... a boob-tube or similar. fr:brassiere redirects to the accented version. Anyway, in English, no accent, in French, always a gave on the first e. Is it even the same word?
• Kraków