[Wikipedia-l] RE: [Wikipedia-l] Orthographe québécoise

Mon Nov 25 21:33:54 UTC 2002

Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>Matt (Montréalais) a ecrivé:
>
>- Je me demande s'il existe une politique sur le Wiki français par rapport 
>- aux orthographes régionales de même qu'existe sur le Wiki anglais. 
>
>If this means that French and English wikipedias should have a similar naming convention for geographic terms, then I strongly agree.
>
>I didn't understand the "Village gai" stuff. It sounds like a discussion about the [[gay village]] article, which in turn sounds like the idea of calling parts of various cities "Chinatown". As in, "I went to Chinatown last night and ate eggrolls at a Chinese restaurant."
>
The French debate is not about gay rights.  It is instead a parallel to 
the American/British or labor/labour issue.  In France "gay" is the 
preferred usage; in Québec "gai" is the preferred usage.  "Village gai" 
is a Montreal usage that is an accepted geographical name for the area. 
 That should override the spelling of "gai/gay" as applied to more 
generic gay villages anywhere in the world.  The person from France was 
wanting to insist that the anglicised spelling "gay" should apply in all 
circumstances.

I hope that that clarifies what the argument was about.

Eclecticology