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JolinMasson
Known Participant
July 17, 2017
Question

What is the difference between French and French Canadian hyphenation

  • July 17, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 1365 views

And also between English UK / USA / Canadian.

There seams to be no documentation about the differences.

Thanks,

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    J
    JolinMassonAuthor
    Known Participant
    July 18, 2017

    I guess there is. Is there any way to open the dictionary file in a readable format to check that?

    Barb Binder
    Community Expert
    Barb BinderCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 18, 2017

    Thanks, Jean-Claude Tremblay! I figured you would know best.

    But I was thinking about this question last night—is it the hyphenation points your colleague objects to or just the way the hyphens are working in general? There are hyphenation controls that can improve the look—but we need to understand what the issue is.

    Compose and hyphenate text in Adobe InDesign

    If it's just where the hyphens are allowed/preferred, you can handle this on a word by word basis:

    https://indesignsecrets.com/reveal-and-customize-hyphenation-break-points.php

    Or you can scroll to the bottom of this file to see how to edit the dictionary:

    Spell-check and language dictionaries in InDesign

    ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
      Barb Binder
      Community Expert
      Barb BinderCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      July 18, 2017

      From what I got, it really is about the hyphenation. With the same settings, changing from French to French:Canadian would appear to make them bad. I’m really mostly curious of opening the files, and having a look at the variation, to try to understand what changes.


      Then check out that last link.

      ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
      Barb Binder
      Community Expert
      Barb BinderCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      July 17, 2017

      An InDesign dictionary contains the spelling of words, along with their hyphenation points. There are numerous spelling differences between English speaking countries: i.e. color (US) vs colour (UK) or behavior (US) vs behaviour (UK). The dictionary will flag the spelling of color when you use a UK English dictionary, or colour when you use a US English Dictionary. The hyphenation points are stored, along with the correct spelling of words, and typically follow the syllables.

      UK vs US spelling list

      My understanding is that while there are differences in the spoken language and grammar, the spelling is pretty much the same for French and French Canadian, so the hyphenation points would be the same as well.

      ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
      J
      JolinMassonAuthor
      Known Participant
      July 17, 2017

      The reason why I’m asking is actually that a collaborator told me he had a lot of issue with the French:Canadien hyphenation, but none with the French one. As if it lacked some sophistication.

      I was curious to see from my own eyes the differences.

      Barb Binder
      Community Expert
      Barb BinderCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      July 17, 2017

      Interesting, and nothing I've ever heard before. Perhaps you could change the language to French and run it by him again, to see if that takes care of it.

      ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
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