> But aren’t \la and \ala synonyms?
They are two variants of Latin with completely different sets of
hyphenation patterns: the original one, activated by \la, is about
twenty years old, targets a "modern" spelling of Latin (characterised
principally by a u/v and i/j distinction), and implements breaks that
are mostly consistent with phonetics; the latter is much more recent
(2-3 years old), has been devised for a "classical" spelling (u = v, i = j),
and makes etymological breaks.
Both sets of patterns have been written by the same person, who calls
them "modern" and "classical" Latin. I've already argued that these are
bad names because it would be better to refer to the type of hyphenation
they implement (phonetic or etymological), which he reluctantly agreed
to; in addition I think that even calling the language variants modern
and classical is a bit of a joke when in actuality they only differ by a
few orthographical features: by that token, thousands of works by
classical Latin authors in print nowadays should be called "modern"
because they make the u/v distinction (if not i/j). But the discussion
didn't lead anywhere, and now that same person has developed a third set
of patterns for "liturgical" Latin that uses yet other orthographical
conventions and type of hyphenation, which makes me doubtful we'll be
able to have a clear description of all the different options any time
soon (but we're working on it).
I should add that all these options have originated as LaTeX packages
in response to demand by actual users (the most recent one for a number
of monasteries that want to typeset scores for Gregorian chant), which
is certainly good, but considering how complex the situation is becoming
I'm now a bit desperate that we'll ever sort out the naming mess (I'm
responsible with Mojca for the hyphenation patterns in TeX
distributions, and we need some consistency when tagging languages).
Best,
Arthur
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