What is the difference between French and French Canadian hyphenation

[JolinMasson]

And also between English UK / USA / Canadian.

There seams to be no documentation about the differences.

Thanks,

[Barb Binder]

An InDesign dictionary contains the spelling of words, along with their hyphenation points. There are numerous spelling differences between English speaking countries: i.e. color (US) vs colour (UK) or behavior (US) vs behaviour (UK). The dictionary will flag the spelling of color when you use a UK English dictionary, or colour when you use a US English Dictionary. The hyphenation points are stored, along with the correct spelling of words, and typically follow the syllables.

UK vs US spelling list

My understanding is that while there are differences in the spoken language and grammar, the spelling is pretty much the same for French and French Canadian, so the hyphenation points would be the same as well.

[JolinMasson]

The reason why I’m asking is actually that a collaborator told me he had a lot of issue with the French:Canadien hyphenation, but none with the French one. As if it lacked some sophistication.

I was curious to see from my own eyes the differences.

[Barb Binder]

Interesting, and nothing I've ever heard before. Perhaps you could change the language to French and run it by him again, to see if that takes care of it.

[Jean-Claude Tremblay]

Maybe some difference way to hyphenate the same words in both french dictionary. Or even differ nets way to write some words.

[JolinMasson]

I guess there is. Is there any way to open the dictionary file in a readable format to check that?

[Barb Binder]

Thanks, Jean-Claude Tremblay! I figured you would know best.

But I was thinking about this question last night—is it the hyphenation points your colleague objects to or just the way the hyphens are working in general? There are hyphenation controls that can improve the look—but we need to understand what the issue is.

Compose and hyphenate text in Adobe InDesign

If it's just where the hyphens are allowed/preferred, you can handle this on a word by word basis:

https://indesignsecrets.com/reveal-and-customize-hyphenation-break-points.php

Or you can scroll to the bottom of this file to see how to edit the dictionary:

Spell-check and language dictionaries in InDesign

[JolinMasson]

From what I got, it really is about the hyphenation. With the same settings, changing from French to French:Canadian would appear to make them bad. I’m really mostly curious of opening the files, and having a look at the variation, to try to understand what changes.

[Barb Binder]

Then check out that last link.

[JolinMasson]

BarbBinder. I tried to find them, but I can only find the User Dictionary (/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Linguistics/UserDictionaries/) Do you know where the App ones are?

[Jean-Claude Tremblay]

I don't think you will be able to open the dictionary file... if you ever find them.

Without specific words problems it's hard to figure out what is going on.

[Jean-Claude Tremblay]

Jolin, can you give me a few words that don't hyphenate correctly.

[JolinMasson]

Jean-Claude. I don’t have this info; I don’t even know what the differences are. It is mostly an assumption from him I think. Which is the reason I want to have a look into the Hunspell dictionary.