Les criss d’accents
That’s the title of an email our city captain sent us. As you can see from his post, it’s about a problem with accents not displaying correctly when we write in French. So the current solution is to write in French without accents.
Being a good kid who doesn’t obey guidelines, laws or otherwise and who doesn’t mind public defiance, my next paragraph is going to be in French in all its glory.
La première solution qui m'est venu à l'esprit pour régler ce problème d'accent est d'encoder toutes les lettres qui portent un accent. C'est une solution très simple pour ceux qui connaissent les codes. C'est aussi simple pour ceux qui ne les connaissent pas. Il suffit d'aller à la page postable, copier le texte et make it friendly.
So if the paragraph above is all messed up, then I will stop typing in French or as Christelle suggested, I’ll turn the whole text into an image.
Related posts:
Looking good in NetNewsWire.
Looking good in Google Reader!
Change your websites ISO settings :P Problème reglé :P
As an Anglo living in Montreal I don’t think the problem per se is whether the accents work or not, the real problem I see is in anyone dictating that these articles MUST be in French. This was a great blog that had info about Montreal, tinted by the views of great authors. Now half of the titles are in English with French text and the other half are all in French “seulement”. Knowing that the metroblogging community is wordwide means that you can write whatever language you desire but would it not make sense to use the language that the MAJORITY of readers would understand? It seems to me like taking one step forward (allowing the localized content with local language fliar) with two giant steps backwards (now MANY of your readers won’t be able to read what you had to say or will have to copy/paste into babelfish to get a horrid literal translation). Looks like I might have to find a different source for the heartybeat of Montreal. If only that I’m able to actually comprehend what is said. I get the whole idea of cultural preservation but shame on those who decide to dictate “langues officielles” on an Internet based platform.
The blog was great when it had bilingual authors who wrote how they felt and in the language they chose. Now it’s losing that feel quickly.
Mikel,
I don’t understand your argument:
1) “would it not make sense to use the language that the MAJORITY of readers would understand?”
2) “The blog was great when it had bilingual authors who wrote how they felt and in the language they chose. Now it’s losing that feel quickly. ”
So, um, which is it?
It looks good on Bloglines.
Mikel’s argument does make sense. Metroblogging is a worldwide site, and should be readable by the whole world. And the percentage of people in the world that can read English is much higher than the percentage of people in the world that can read French.
If, for example, Metroblogging Islamabad was written in their local tongue almost nobody outside the Arab world would be able to understand it.
Just because Montréal is officially a French speaking city, in reality it is a bilingual city (even though the percentage of native speakers of French and English is below 50, so none can claim an absolute majority) there is a whole fuss about it. And again and again.
O, and speaking of accents (I’m an expert in those) the feed as seen in Safari’s RSS read is fine, not only the paragraph (ISO Latin encoded) in this post. Mysterious.
Are you all saying that Montreal Metroblogging should only be in French? If so, why are you coming out of your shell now? It’s not like this is the first time French posts appear on this blog and I know you’ve been “readers” long enough to have noticed that.
Why mention this now?
Just to make this crystal clear, I am not “dictating” anything. The writers are perfectly free to write about what they want in the language of their choice.
What I am trying to convey is that they are free to write in French if they want to. In recent months, the Yulblog meetings have grown tremendously and most of the new participants write francophone blogs. Some of them may not be confortable writing in English but it doesn’t mean that they should not be provided with an opportunity to participate.
Mikel is right in noting that the Metroblogging community is worldwide. In fact, only one third of our visitors are coming from Canada. What this also means is that we still have a way to go in serving our local community.
Mare,
Um, which of Mikel’s arguments are you referring to. Mikel made two arguments and they are self contradicting.
That was the point I made that you clearly missed.
Mare,
Um, which of Mikel’s arguments are you referring to?. Mikel made two arguments and they are self contradicting.
That was the point I made that you clearly missed.
As an American, I enjoy using my high school french to try and read half the blog posts. I don’t mind it really.