[XeTeX] Incorrect handling of name prefixes by biblatex (van, de)

Tue Nov 2 01:12:00 CET 2010

I've been testing a littlebit, and learning new things as well. I made a small bibliography file (.bib) with some typical "Dutch" names:

Gerard Ekdom
Jolanda Frederika Helena Lindeman
Erasmus B. van de Hoogenband
Jozef Augustinus Maria van Eynthoven
Willem van Oranje
Willem Frederik Geert van Rooijen
Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink

The last name is special. The last name is "Vennegoor of Hesselink", so the "of" should not go into the "von-part". To achieve this, it needs to be entered as 

Jan {Vennegoor of Hesselink}

in the .bib file. If it is entered as "Vennegoor of Hesselink, Jan" it gets sorted under Hesselink - I guess that bibtex just detects the comma and takes whatever immediately preceding token as the Last-part.

I have tried my little test bibliography. The only BST file that gets everything right is the "nederlands.bst", which sorts the names in the correct "Dutch" order: Ekdom, van Eynthoven, van de Hoogenband, Lindeman, van Oranje, van Rooijen, Vennegoor of Hesselink, and also provides correctly "see Van Rooijen (2010)" as the citation (but strangely enough the name "Vennegoor of Hesselink" is fully capitalized).

If you really need to, you can enforce a capitalization of the 'von-part' by entering:

J.A.J. {\MakeUppercase{v}an} Opstal - but note that now you will __always__ get 'Van'.

Only the "nederlands.bst" sorted the names in the "Dutch" order, i.e. not sorted under "v" but under the first letter of the Last-part. All others sorted based on the "von" part and then the "Last" part. 

I think that you will need to make some changes to your BST file if you want to get everything right. But then again, is it worth your while?

Regards,
Wilfred

--- On Mon, 1/11/10, Pierre Morel <pier.morel at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Pierre Morel <pier.morel at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [XeTeX] Incorrect handling of name prefixes by biblatex (van, de)
> To: "Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other platforms" <xetex at tug.org>
> Date: Monday, 1 November, 2010, 4:48 PM
> Thank you for your insight on Dutch
> names and basic bibtex (I learned something!).
> 
> I looked a bit more into the typography of name prefixes in
> French and it looks quite messy... some French names have
> capitalization for the first letter, some don't, and the use
> of small capitals for prefixes is not clear either.
> 
> So let's assume that the non-capitalization of the prefix
> is "normal", there are still some problems:
> - Non capitalization of the first letter when only the name
> is used (van OPSTAL, 1989) instead of (Van OPSTAL, 1989)...
> it's the same thing in the bibliography : van OPSTAL, 
> A.J. instead of Van OPSTAL, A.J.
> - And maybe worst : all these names are sorted under "V" in
> the bibliography !
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Pierre
> 
>  
> Le 1 nov. 2010 à 01:25, Wilfred van Rooijen a écrit :
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I don't know if the following helps, it seems basic
> bibtex so I assume you already know. But just in case, the
> following example comes from the Latex Companion:
> > 
> > "Johannes Martinus Albertus van de Groene Heide" (it
> may seem far-fetched but this kind of name is fairly common
> in The Netherlands)
> > 
> > The "van de" is detected as the "von-part" and dealt
> with accordingly. But note that if you input as "Johannes
> Martinus Albertus Van de Groene Heide" it goes wrong,
> because the 'von'-part is detected from the "first
> non-capitalized word" in the name. I guess that it is then
> basically the question how the "von"-part is typeset in your
> BST file. In French it seems to be common to use (small)
> capitals for the family name (i.e. Bertrand GARNIER, Gerald
> RIMPAULT). I don't know if this also applies to the
> "von-part", i.e. is it Yvan de la PORTE or Yvan DE LA
> PORTE?
> > 
> > Note the following: indeed, in Dutch it is common to
> capitalize the first letter of the "von"-part if the format
> is "last name, first name". Thus:
> > 
> > W.F.G. van Rooijen  - but
> > Van Rooijen, W.F.G.
> > 
> > In The Netherlands, my name would be sorted under "R".
> In your example, you'd have "Van Opstal, ...", but to my
> mind "VAN OPSTAL, ..." looks weird. In that case, I would
> prefer "Van OPSTAL", because the 'van' is not considered
> part of the family name (in Dutch it is know as a
> "tussenvoegsel", "intermediate part").
> > 
> > Wilfred
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > --- On Mon, 1/11/10, Pierre Morel <pier.morel at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > 
> >> From: Pierre Morel <pier.morel at gmail.com>
> >> Subject: Re: [XeTeX] Incorrect handling of name
> prefixes by biblatex (van, de)
> >> To: "Unicode-based TeX for Mac OS X and other
> platforms" <xetex at tug.org>
> >> Date: Monday, 1 November, 2010, 1:22 AM
> >> Isn't the language field used for the
> >> hyphenation of the title of the article ?
> >> 
> >> This is different from the language of the text in
> which an
> >> article is cited (using named references).
> >> Indeed, biblatex handles that well (this is why I
> picked
> >> it) : in the french part it uses small capitals
> for the
> >> names and "et" to separate authors, in the english
> part, it
> >> uses lower case for the names and "and" as
> separator.
> >> But this prefix problem remains.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Le 31 oct. 2010 à 16:57, Carsten Ziegert a écrit
> :
> >> 
> >>> As far as I know, biblatex allows the use of
> a
> >> "language" field and
> >>> capitalizes the name prefixes accordingly.
> >>> 
> >>> Carsten
> >>> 
> >>> Am Sonntag, den 31.10.2010, 16:15 +0100
> schrieb Pierre
> >> Morel:
> >>>> Hello
> >>>> 
> >>>> Here is another thesis-related question,
> but in a
> >> different mail, because the subject is completely
> >> different.
> >>>> 
> >>>> My thesis is French and English, and I use
> the
> >> biblatex package for the bibliography (with the
> apa style
> >> and the natbib option).
> >>>> Everything goes as wanted, but for the
> names with
> >> prefixes (example : "van Opstal", "Pi Ku",
> etc...).
> >>>> In French, the names are supposed to be in
> small
> >> capitals, however, the "van" and "pi" of the
> examples above
> >> are in lower case, while the rest of the name is
> in small
> >> capitals (with of course a "big" capital at the
> beginning) :
> >> I have for example (van OPSTAL, 1989), which is
> rather
> >> ugly.
> >>>> I noticed that the prefixes are stored in
> a
> >> different field in the .bbl file and that I could
> prevent
> >> the problem by moving the prefix back in the name
> field, but
> >> this workaround is VERY tedious and not perfect.
> >>>> 
> >>>> So is there a way to have a proper
> handling of
> >> these composed names with my current settings ?
> >>>> 
> >>>> Thanks
> >>>> 
> >>>> Pierre
> >>>> 
> >>>> PS : last, when not used with the first
> name and
> >> initials, the "van" should be capitalized "Van",
> which is
> >> not the case (but this problem is of less
> importance)
> >>>> 
> >>>> 
> >>>> 
> >>
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> >>> 
> >>> -- 
> >>> Carsten Ziegert
> >>> Association SIL / Chad
> >>> mobile: +235 63.78.58.00
> >>> skype : carstenzi
> >>> http://www.sil.org
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>>
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> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
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> > 
> > 
> > 
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