Not the oignon: fury as France changes 2,000 spellings and ditches circumflex

French linguistic purists have voiced online anger at the loss of one of their favourite accents – the pointy little circumflex hat (ˆ) that sits on top of certain vowels.

A change in the spelling of some 2,000 French words will come into effect in new primary school textbooks being released for the start of the school year in September, the education ministry and publishers have announced.

The circumflex accent will become optional for many words, as will other spelling changes that have purists rubbing their eyes – such as onion, which can now be spelled “ognon” as well as the traditional “oignon”.

The changes, which have caused uproar on French Twitter, were first approved by the prestigious guardians of the French language, the Academie Française, in 1990.

Since then both versions have been accepted, but the new spellings only began appearing in official documents in the past few years.

The 2015 official bulletin on new school teaching curricula refers to the 1990 changes as the gold standard for teaching spelling.

“What is new is a more explicit reference” to the reformed spelling in official material, said Sylvie Marce of the textbook publisher Belin. Some publishers had already made the changes.

The changes were made to fix spelling anomalies and inconsistencies, according to a website devoted to the recommended spelling.

It adds hyphens, takes them away, tweaks spellings and removes the circumflex from the ‘i’ and the ‘u’ where the accent makes no change to accent or meaning.

The circumflex is “one of the main causes of errors and its usage is random”, said the website.

But many are not convinced.

“I will continue to use the circumflex, and to judge those who don’t,” wrote one Twitter user.

The hashtag  #JeSuisCirconflexe (I am circumflex) – a nod to the Je Suis Charlie phrase that swept social media after the attack on Charlie Hebdo in January last year – went viral in France.

In other changes, “week-end” becomes “weekend” as in English, but the word “leader” takes on a more French spelling of “leadeur” in the recommended spelling.

“This has been the official spelling in the Republic for 25 years. What is surprising is that we are surprised,” said Michel Lussault, president of the school curriculum board.

“There were strange spelling anomalies linked to historic shifts so the Academie really made sure these changes were understandable,” he said.

It was not an upheaval, he added, more a “clean-up”.

When making the new spelling recommendations in 1990, the then “perpetual secretary” of the Academie Française Maurice Druon wrote that “language is a living thing”, adding: “Work should begin again in 30 years, if not earlier.”

10 spellings that will change

Oignon becomes ognon (onion)

Nénuphar becomes nénufar (waterlily)

S’entraîner becomes s’entrainer (to train)

Maîtresse becomes maitresse (mistress or female teacher)

Coût becomes cout (cost)

Paraître becomes paraitre (to appear)

Week-end becomes weekend (weekend)

Mille-pattes becomes millepattes (centipedes)

Porte-monnaie becomes portemonnaie (wallet)

Des après-midi becomes des après-midis (afternoons)

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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/05/not-the-oignon-fury-france-changes-2000-spellings-ditches-circumflex?CMP=fb_gu

‘Re-working the Translation is Entirely the Author’s Prerogative’

It’s perhaps a common view: The original text “belongs” to the author, and therefore any translations of the text also belong to the author, who has a moral right to alter it as she sees fit. Translations are, here, simple extensions of the original, and the author maintains the same creative rights over these as she does over the original. The translator is simply jobbing for the author and publisher — doing “work for hire” — and is not crafting her or his own creative work.

Sa’ada continued, in a second comment, that, “ it seemed like Booth was essentially trying to tell the author about the novel’s ‘spirit and political resonance’, when that’s for the author to determine.”

Sa’ada added: “Yes, some authors don’t have the skill set to determine the quality of the translation (in all fields, not just literature…). Are they being silly/foolish/egotistical? Absolutely…..but it’s still their right to do. As long as I get paid, I grit my teeth and bear it (although I have asked to have my name removed from jobs that were revised so horribly that I did not want to be associated with the final end product).”

Booth ultimately did not remove her name from the project. As she wrote in a letter to the Times Literary Supplement: “Of course, my decision to retain my name on the title page (the only decision about the text’s final shape that the publisher allowed me !) means that I remain partly responsible for a work that I was given no authority, ultimately, to craft.”

Should a translator have a moral right over the text, authority over its craft? In his commentary on the al-Aswany v. Jonathan Wright debate, M.A. Orthofer makes a strong case against the “jobbing” view of translation. As he points out, translator Tiina Nunnally writes, in Rule #3 of her “translators’ rules”:

3. Don’t sign a book contract that includes the term “work-for-hire.”

The contract should included provisions for a translator advance, a royalty, and benefits from other subsidiary rights. The translation should be copyrighted in your name.

Clearly, the best of all possible worlds is one where the author and translator work together to craft the best possible text. Nonetheless, it matters whether the translator can assert some control over the text, or whether it is wholly the domain of the author and publisher.

http://arablit.wordpress.com/2013/11/01/re-working-the-translation-is-entirely-the-authors-prerogative/