I would recommend the more technical word "orthography" over "spelling". I've done a very small number of articles on the English Wiktionary covering the most recent German spelling reform and I'm pretty sure I've used (''pre-1998'') and (''post-1998'') though I know this leaves a year uncovered in between because I wasn't sure of the dates. I've also done one or two for the old Russian orthograpy, I think 1908 was the year of change but I can't be sure. I've seen people using "pre-revolutionary" and "post-revolutionary" spelling, but I'd want to be 100% positive that there were no other reforms before or after the revolution to use such narrow terms.
The case of English "color" vs "colour" is a special case because it's not due to unilateral reform. It's due to a division in the language. Outside the US, all dictionaries list the so-called "British" spelling first. In the US, all dictionaries use the US spelling first. Thus there are two traditions. Very very few dictionaries are aimed at both the "British" and US markets simultaneously. The ones I have seen are aimed at Europeans or Asians learning English, seem to be all produced outside the US, and give the British spelling first. The same goes for pronunciations.
So with English there exists tension between the spellings, in the other languages there is an accepted progression from one spelling to the next. Over the next few years we may see a parallel due to the 1998 German reform not being embraced on all sides. It Switzerland the new spelling is in and everybody uses it. In Germany a lot of people don't want it anymore. But unlike English, German has a language authority, Duden, who makes the major dictionary.
Hippietrail.
On 6/28/05, Muke Tever muke@frath.net wrote:
Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
In Ultimate Wiktionary, we want to have it a user preference that will allow you to select what languages you want to add. The languages that will be allowed to start with will be the ones that have a language code. Within a language there will be room for distinct spellings. There will also be room for old spellings; this is particularly relevant for the Dutch language as it will have new spelling rules that will be published on October 15 and will be the official spelling from August 1 2006 onwards.
How will the distinct spellings be handled? Not the same way [[color]] and [[colour]] are on en: I hope?
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