Help talk:Score submission guide/nl

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Edit war

Huub and Joachim, the article page has been protected to stop this edit war; here on the talk page is the proper place to settle this kind of dispute. When you both reach a consensus, the page will be unprotected again. I know nothing of Neerlandisch, so I won't give any opinions on what is right or wrong, but checking on Google ( site:nl ) I found the following:

  • ge-upload: 27.700 pages
  • geüpload: 25.700 pages
  • geupload: 846.000 pages

Regards, —Carlos mail_icon.gif 04:27, 26 September 2008 (PDT)

Reply by: Chucktalk Giffen 05:34, 26 September 2008 (PDT)

 Help 

I suspect that 'geupload' is more recent than 'geüpload' - just as 'encyclopedia' is more recent than 'encyclopædia' ... perhaps because of available characters on keyboards? At any rate, this Test uw taalkennis en klik op uw keuze seems to favor 'geüpload'. I suppose the real question is - will the average reader/speaker of Dutch be confused?

Allow me to elaborate.
  • For various historic, religious, economic and other reasons, the Netherlands and the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, although sharing a mother tongue, harbour many varieties of dialects, accents, sociolects and pronunciations. To accommodate for this variety, yet maintain ‘a’ standard language (Dutch or Nederlands), both countries set up the Dutch Language Board (Nederlandse Taalunie) in 1980. Its aim, among many others, is to organise Dutch spelling. Though the 1995 and 2005 spelling reforms have not been particularly popular for reasons beyond the scope of this argument, the rules still apply – even to the point of becoming law (sic!). In contrast to English, for instance, Dutch spelling is not an neighbor/neighbour story (anymore).
  • One of these rules concerns the spelling of derivates, which this participle clearly is: the infinitive ‘uploaden’ is prefixed with the participle morpheme ‘ge-‘. The rules says that ‘clashing vowels’ in derivates are disambiguated with a diaeresis. The combination ‘e-u’ could be read as a diphtong in Dutch, so clearly the diaeresis is warranted. The rule can be found here.
  • Next to the rule book, the Dutch Language Board also publishes an Official Spelling List of Dutch, commonly referred to as ‘the little green book’, because of its traditional cover colour. It can be consulted on-line, and yields this result.
  • As far as googling for answers is concerned, I could probably come up with a couple of sites that state that 2 plus 2 makes 5, if I put some effort into it. The point is not so much if one can find ‘sources’ that back up whatever one chooses to believe, but rather which sources one should refer to. In the case of this spelling issue, I’m afraid there can only be but one: the Taalunie.
  • Huub’s argument is that ‘geüpload’ doesn’t look pretty. I might be persuaded to agree with him, even more so because a diaeresis is a relatively rare occurence in Dutch spelling. Esthetics don’t enter into it, though – it’s just the way it is. I left a message on his talk page a while ago explaining just that, but he blanked it without bothering to reply either on his talk page or on mine.
  • Much as I agree that the beauty of the Wiki-environment lies in the cooperation of contributors, and that there really isn’t such a thing as absolute copyright on the things you share over a Wiki-platform, I am reluctant to have any blatant and persistent spelling errors introduced in a text which I initially wrote. If I were to go about changing people’s scores, adding flats or sharps because I liked it, you’d be all over me, and rightly so. Language is as much of an art as music is, I believe, so the same care should be taken before tampering with it. I’ve been teaching Dutch for the best part of the last 10 years, and it is very unlike me or unlike my professional ethos to publish Dutch texts with spelling errors in them (other than an occasional typo) – the least I can do if I demand just that from my students.
joachim 04:24, 27 September 2008 (UTC)


Thank you for your elaborate explanation, Joachim. I have just reverted Huub's revert of your edit. If he makes no attempt to justify his alterations, the page will remain as it is. --Bobnotts talk 05:50, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi Joachim, thanks for taking the time to explain us the situation. I know well what you mean, Portuguese is also going through a Spelling Reform and facing a lot of resistence from people both here in Brazil and in Portugal who prefer to write it the traditional way instead of admitting a unified standard. I hope Huub will also step in and present us his arguments so that this dispute may be solved peacefully. —Carlos mail_icon.gif 11:32, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi Carlos, Joachim, Chuck and Rob, with all respect for the skill and energy that Joachim had put into the Dutch translating of the Score submission Guide, my main purpose in the first place on 26/27 februari 2008 was to make at some points the text better readable for Dutch people. Allthough there are indeed the official Dutch spelling rules that are accepted in both Holland and Belgium as Joachim has explained above, there is quite some difference in how to formulate sentences - this is not a question of good or bad- and I am glad that Joachim has accepted most of the corrections that I have made in order to make the text better readable for Dutch persons like myself.
With respect to the issue of writing 'geupload' or 'geüpload'. Joachim is correct in saying that 'geüpload' is according to the official spelling rules. But 'geupload' is nowadays accepted and much more used -as also Carlos has demonstrated above in his Google.nl search- on internet. You know by now that I strongly favor 'geupload'.
But I will leave it up to you and thank you all for the good work you do for this site. The fact that I happily find my choral compositions performed in places like Basel and Seoel is because of this great site! :--Huub
Hi all. As Huub has remarked, I left most of his edits as he made them, since syntax and wording have not been settled by the Taalunie, meaning that an argument over these issues could very well lead to a genuine edit war, as there is no official right or wrong. Much as I understand what you mean, Huub, the only result of your intervention is that Flemish people will find wordings and phrases just as strange as you did (before editing them). Still, bygones. As far as the spelling is concerned, I hope we can value standard over taste. Cordially, joachim 03:59, 28 September 2008 (UTC)