Foreign words and phrases in english text

7.1

Latin and other foreign-language expressions that are grammatically integrated into an English text should be italicised (no inverted commas) and should have the appropriate accents, e.g. “used inter alia as proof of payment”, “a possible raison d'être for these sites is ...”.

Exceptions: words and phrases now in common use and/or considered part of the English language, e.g. “angst”, “ennui”, “ad hoc”, “per capita”, “per se”, etc.

7.2

Quotations. Quotations that are not being translated (references to the actual wording of other documents and so on) may be placed in quotation marks without italicising the text.

7.3

Typing special marks and characters. Put all accents and marks normally available on word processors used in the Commission (i.e. accented characters used in the Community languages); other marks (e.g. barred l in Polish, b above o in transcribed Japanese) can be omitted pending the introduction of appropriate multilingual word-processing facilities. For non-roman scripts, see Annex 7 for Greek and the Cyrillic table in Annex 8.

7.4

Latin. For the more obscure Latin phrases consult a Latin dictionary. The Van Dale Dutch dictionary is also an excellent source.

7.5

The expression “per capita” is preferable to “per caput” (NB no hyphen); “per diem” (“daily allowance”), “per se” and many others have English equivalents, which should be preferred. Use “a year” or “/year” rather than “per year”.

7.6

Greek. The interinstitutional agreement made some years back to use the 1981 adapted transliteration system recommended by the Greek Standards Organisation (ELOT) for all languages has been widely ignored, particularly as regards the spelling of Greek place names (islands, cities, regions). Annex 7 reproduces both the ELOT and the classical transliteration conventions.

7.7

Arabic. There are many different transliteration systems. Do not always rely on the form used in the source text; check whether a more appropriate English spelling convention exists. For example, French, German or Dutch writers may use j where y is needed in English or French (e.g. DE: Scheich Jamani = EN: Sheikh Yamani). Note spellings of Maghreb and Mashreq.

The article Al and variants should be capitalised at the beginning of names but not internally: Dhu al Faqar, Abd ar Rahman. Do not use hyphens to connect parts of a name.

7.8

Cyrillic. When transliterating for Community documents, omit the sign indicating softening of a consonant. Note that the Community languages have different transliteration systems (DE: Gorbatschew, Jelzin, Tschernobyl; FR: Gorbatchov, Eltsine, Tchernobyl; EN: Gorbachov, Yeltsin, Chernobyl). Care should be taken to use the recommended transliteration scheme indicated in Annex 8.

7.9

Chinese. The pinyin romanisation system introduced by the People's Republic in the 1950s has now become the internationally accepted standard. Important new spellings to note are:

The spelling of Shanghai remains the same.

Add the old form in parentheses if you think it necessary.

8.

VERBS