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(a)frath.net> wrote:
Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)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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