BE: francais abbreviations aren’t French

[georgd]

Dutch and French are official languages in Belgium with regions either officially French or Dutch except for Brussels that’s bilingual (plus a region where German has a certain status). abbrev:francais looks like it should be used for French abbreviations but it doesn‘t, the file lists Dutch abbreviations under those keys.

[mvwestendorp]

There is an overall bigger issue with the abbreviations for Belgium in that currently for French, every court is a variant of the (dutch) abbreviation and Anvers and the Dutch file has the court right after the name MechelenArbrb. From what I see a refactoring here Juris-M/jurism-abbreviations@684a094 is the cause. I was actually planning to create an new issue for that.

I have contributed the lists for Belgium via @fbennett at an earlier stage and still have these files (see attachement). Are those still usable (given the new data) or is it better to just start correcting the juris-be-desc.json? If so, I am willing to make those corrections and also provide the correct French abbreviations while at it

auto-be.json.zip

[georgd]

There is an overall bigger issue with the abbreviations for Belgium in that currently for French, every court is a variant of the (dutch) abbreviation and Anvers and the Dutch file has the court right after the name MechelenArbrb.

I thought so already :)

From what I see a refactoring here Juris-M/jurism-abbreviations@684a094 is the cause. I was actually planning to create an new issue for that.

I have contributed the lists for Belgium via @fbennett at an earlier stage and still have these files (see attachement). Are those still usable (given the new data) or is it better to just start correcting the juris-be-desc.json? If so, I am willing to make those corrections and also provide the correct French abbreviations while at it

If anyone could, it would be Frank. But given that already two refactorings have passed since, and the capabilities have greatly evolved, I think it’s better to directly work on juris-be-desc.json.

[georgd]

Looking more closely through the old files, I have the impression that the French file wasn’t complete then, as well (but maybe I just don’t fully understand the Belgian Tower of Babel): e.g., I’d not expect Vred. Liège or Assisen Namur in there. – So, one more reason for correcting the current desc file directly.

[mvwestendorp]

Yes you're right about the French file. I am not French speaking so I looked primarily at the Dutch file.
Another reason is that French isn't that relevant for the stylesheet that I use/support (V&A), which is exclusively Dutch.

The examples you give are part Dutch abbreviation (Vred. ~ Vrederechter) with a French city (Liege ~ Luik) so it is related to the issue you describe in the first post. I have to check with someone who is French speaking for this.

I remember that Frank at one point had a script that could go both ways between those files, but maybe I was mistaken. Probably the refactoring does not allow that anymore so I will just start working on transferring the information to the desc file unless Frank has a turnkey solution :)

[fbennett]

@mvwestendorp The new format should offer all the locale flexibility that you need. The main (non-variant) entries are language-agnostic, so if some courts are known exclusively in one language, and some in another, languages can be mixed at top-level. You can then tweak things for alternative citation output (drawn from name/abbrev and ABBREV) or alternative locales in the UI (drawn from name exclusively).

Files in repo have all been converted to the new format. If you have an old-format file to hand with preferred content, I can help convert that to the new format with a script (the script is in the repo, but requires some configuration to make it go).

[fbennett]

@mvwestendorp (Oh -- I think I may have misread your message? If the problem is that the better Dutch content is in an abbreviation file, then yes, that will need to be carried across to juris-desc.)

[mvwestendorp]

@fbennett Thanks for the clarification. No problem for carrying it over. It all needs to be checked anyway.

I am working on it and will report back later.