Recently I had to do some C work of a MoSCoW list on a 10.3.3.3 system. The customer wanted français on the dropdown list at the logon screen written as Français:
With the help of Christi@n I recovered from my brain freeze and started editing a copy of languagenames.xml in the general customMessages folder:
A quick reboot of the presentation server a the problem was fixed:
Well not really......As most students in the Netherlands I dropped my French classes ASAP in high school. My knowledge of the French language is restricted to "Papa fume un pipe dans le jardin..." (Dad smokes a pipe in the garden).
Thankfully one of the best names in the Dutch OBI community Stijn came to the rescue and prevented this "faux pas" :
In English language names are written with a capital, but not in French. Changing français to Français is actually incorrect, because it means something different.
To be more clear: français means French and un Français means a Frenchmen. This explains why some language names are written without a capital.
A quick conference with the customer reviled that the issue was raised by a Dutchmen who thought the French branches would be offended if there language wasn't starting with a Capital.
Till Next Time
And I'm not sure that the French know this one (included me).
ReplyDeletePs: It's
"Papa fume unE pipe dans le jardin..."
Cheers
Nico
Hi John,
ReplyDeleteI have to admit: I didn't know this either, but I just thought that there had to be a reason for writing "français" with the first letter in lower-case. So I did a small check on google. :)
I have done some more googling and I've found this web page having most European languange names in their own language:
http://publications.europa.eu/code/pdf/370000en.htm#languesAs you can see, those people in Brussels are doing very useful work. ;)
Regards,
Stijn
Hi John
ReplyDeleteYour explanation about "français" is helpful. I enjoy reading your articles and these small observations like these make it more interesting.
Regards
S.