Suite affinity: poor French translation of Capitalisation

[Pyanepsion]

v. 2.4.2.2356

Hello everyone,

A ‘majuscule’ is in French a letter of larger proportions and often of a different shape to the minuscule, placed at the initial of a proper noun or at the beginning of a sentence or verse. It is a capital or title case.

https://www.dictionnaire-academie.fr/article/A9M0273

A better French translation of ‘Capitalisation’ is ‘Casse’.

[nomi02118]

5 hours ago, Pyanepsion said:

v. 2.4.2.2356

Hello everyone,

A ‘majuscule’ is in French a letter of larger proportions and often of a different shape to the minuscule, placed at the initial of a proper noun or at the beginning of a sentence or verse. It is a capital or title case.

https://www.dictionnaire-academie.fr/article/A9M0273

A better French translation of ‘Capitalisation’ is ‘Casse’.

Funny here in Quebec we use Majuscules, at least in my circles. Doesn’t make it right but its what I am used to! 

[Pyanepsion]

😉The dictionary of the famous Canadian company Druide gives more or less the same definition of the French term ‘majuscule’ as the Académie française.

Quote

Lettre qu’on utilise uniquement et obligatoirement au début d’une phrase, d’un nom propre ou d’un vers, qui est plus grande que les autres et dont la forme est plus ou moins différente de celle de sa contrepartie utilisée dans une autre position.

On commence normalement une phrase avec une majuscule. Les majuscules sont habituellement imprimées en capitales et les minuscules en bas-de-casse ou en petites capitales.

⇄ capital letter · uppercase letter· capital · cap. · uppercase · majuscule · en majuscules : majuscule

[AlainP]

"Casse" is wrongly used nowadays. It comes from the old typography system. "La casse" was the wooden box, (sometimes metal), the letter case in English, in which printers put the lead letters for the printing press. The most used letters, the "lowercase" letters were at the bottom of the box for faster access, in French "bas de casse". Capital letters were in the upper section, the "uppercase" letters.

Majuscules et minuscules sont des types de casse. Les petites capitales sont aussi un autre type de casse. 
Upper and lower case are part of the "case". Small capitals are also another kind of case.

So, IMO, I would say that "Majuscules" is the one to use here, but I wouldn't bet too much money on that.

And don't forget that when you send you old car to the scrap yard, in French "vous l'envoyez à la casse".....

[Pyanepsion]

What are we talking about? A typographic function that works on the Unicode categories Letter upper case (Lu), Letter lower case (Ll), and Letter title case (Lt). The Affinity suite is a professional software, which means that it must use a precise typographic vocabulary and not just any old thing.

The distinction between "capitale" and "majuscule" is specific to French and has no direct correspondence in English, where "uppercase" can refer to both concepts. This linguistic nuance can actually lead to confusion or translation errors when working with bilingual texts or in multilingual contexts.

A capital letter is a larger letter used in a variety of contexts, whereas a "majuscule" letter refers specifically to a capital letter used at the beginning of a word, sentence, verse or for proper nouns, in accordance with spelling rules. Two translations should be changed to comply with French typographic reality.

• Capitalization ([not Majuscules] Casse) : A typographic function that works on the Unicode categories Letter.

Dynamic transformations

• None (Aucun) : No case style is applied to the text.
• Small Caps (Petites capitales) : Use a small capitals style without changing their original case.
• All Caps (Tout en capitales) : Use a capitals style without changing their original case.

Persistent transformations

• Lower Case (Minuscules) : Transforms all letters into lower case.
• Upper Case ([not Majuscule] Capitales) : Transforms all letters into capitals.
• Toggle Case (Inverser la casse) : Inverts the case of each letter in the text.
• Title Case (Majuscule en début de mot) : This is an English concept. Only the first letters of the main words are capitalised, the rest are lowercase.
• Sentence Case (Majuscule en début de phrase) : Only the first letter of the first sentence is capitalised, the rest of the text is lowercase except for words with an initial capital letter (upper case).

[Alfred]

34 minutes ago, Pyanepsion said:

The distinction between "capitale" and "majuscule" is specific to French and has no direct correspondence in English, where "uppercase" can refer to both concepts.

That’s interesting, but you go on to explain that

35 minutes ago, Pyanepsion said:

a "majuscule" letter refers specifically to a capital letter used at the beginning of a word, sentence, verse or for proper nouns

It follows that « capitale » corresponds directly to “capital”, and « majuscule » corresponds directly to “initial capital”.

[Pyanepsion]

Yes, and so Affinity is written in majuscule with the majuscule letter ‘A’, whereas AFFINITY is written in capitals with the first letter, ‘A’, also a majuscule letter, because the design of ‘A’ is larger than the ordinary letters or characters [that is lower case] and of a different design [instead of ‘a’], and it is placed at the initial of the word.

[Old Bruce]

5 hours ago, Pyanepsion said:

The distinction between "capitale" and "majuscule" is specific to French and has no direct correspondence in English,

Actually in my experience (unilingual Anglophone here) majuscule is as you describe it, a separate letterform. Again in my experience, it will look like a capital letter but it is not a capital. I cannot recall actually ever needing them.

[Pyanepsion]

According to the definition in French dictionaries, a ‘majuscule’ is in practice a capital letter, with an additional nuance: it is located at the beginning of a proper noun (Affinity), and certain common nouns ‘l’État’ (The State), ‘le ministère de la Culture’ (The Ministry of Culture), etc., or the first word at the beginning of a sentence, or the first word at the beginning of a verse in classical prosody.

The name of ‘la Grande Ourse’ (the Great Bear) is written with two ‘majuscules’ like in English, the name of ‘la Voie lactée’ (The Milky Way) is written with only 1 ‘majuscule’.

[MikeTO]

@Pyanepsion I agree that Majuscules is not ideal but I think you can blame Apple from whom Serif appears to have taken its lead.  

• Affinity and Apple use "Capitalization" and translate it as "Majuscules"
• Adobe and Microsoft use "Change Case" and translate it as "Modifier la casse"
• Quark uses "Change Case" and translates it as "Changer la casse"

Majuscules = Capitals and not Capitalization so I think it would be better if Affinity switched to "Modifier la casse" like Adobe and Microsoft.

We use Majuscules in English, too, at least us nerds do.

English characters:

• A, B, C - these are uppercase, capital, or majuscule characters
• a, b, c - these are lowercase or minuscule characters

English words:

• APPLE - this word is uppercase, all capitals/all caps, or majuscule
• apple - this word is lowercase or minuscule
• Apple - this word is capitalized

English sentences:

• Apples are good - this is sentence case
• Apples are Good - this is title case
• Apples Are Good - this is start case, even articles, prepositions, and conjunctions are capitalized

 

Edited March 30 by MikeTO
fixed typo

[Pyanepsion]

1 hour ago, MikeTO said:

Majuscules = Capitals and not Capitalization so I think it would be better if Affinity switched to "Modifier la casse" like Adobe and Microsoft.

Interesting. Thank you, MikeTo. That said, the word " Majuscule " is not only "not ideal".  It is wrong and leads to major misunderstandings.

French characters:

• A, B, C - these are uppercase, capital characters
• a, b, c - these are lowercase or minuscule characters

French words:

• APPLE - this word is uppercase, all capitals/all caps, with one majuscule
• apple - this word is lowercase or minuscule
• Apple - this word is majuscule

French sentences:

• Apples are good - this is a sentence case. It begins by a majuscule.
• Apples are Good - this is title case. This concept does not exist in French. Here we have a sentence that must begin with a capital letter, and good must be in lower case, like the first sentence.
• Apples Are Good - this is start case, even articles, prepositions, and conjunctions are capitalized. This concept does not exist in French. Here we have a sentence that must begin with a capital letter, and good must be in lower case, like the first sentence.

French verse in classical prosody

Gloire à la terre ! Gloire à l’aube où Dieu parait !
Au fourmillement d’yeux ouverts dans la forêt,
Aux fleurs, aux nids que le jour dore !
Gloire au blanchissement nocturne des sommets !
Gloire au ciel bleu qui peut, sans s’épuiser jamais,
Faire des dépenses d’aurore !

(Glory to the earth! Glory to the dawn when God appears!
To the swarming eyes open in the forest,
To the flowers and nests gilded by day!
Glory to the nightly whitening of the summits!
Glory to the blue sky that can, without ever running out,
Spend like the dawn!)
The Legend of the Centuries, The Earth, Victor Hugo

Other French majuscule letters

Book or newspaper titles, political texts, nicknames, company names, public organisations, international organisations, decorations, vehicle names and the names of stars all obey specific capitalisation rules.

Edited March 30 by Pyanepsion
Addition of a precision

[AlainP]

Don't worry too much about this guys, in a few years the whole planet will speak English anyway.

[Pyanepsion]

Everyone fully understands your concerns about the influence of the United States, given the proximity and close interaction with your country.

However, it is interesting to note a renaissance of ancestral languages around the world. Mandarin now tops the list of mother tongues, followed by Spanish, then English, which is now in decline with the loss of influence of the British Empire. Hindi and Bengali are also among the most widely spoken languages.

😁This raises an interesting question: how will we name technologies and globally recognised brands such as Fenêtre 11 or Pomme Pinceau 2 in the future in this enriching linguistic mosaic?