Subject: [Ltru] Discussion about the language name "Breton" and geography: Ltru Digest, Vol 52, Issue 63

From: CE Whitehead <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:17:05 -0400

Sorry M. Gerard, my mistake in mentioning the Atlantic; I believe I said that Bretagne was located 'on a portion of the Atlantic coast' and not its entirety but I only said that to avoid taking a stand on West versus Northwest, and for no other reason. Thanks for your information on the coast of Bretagne.

There was no intention to equate Bretagne with the entire French Atlantic Coastal area.

My apologies.

I do not think it matters whether we make Bretagne located in the West or Northwest, of course, and I am glad that is the general consensus, and if we replace Northwest with West that is fine with me.

Best,

--C. E. Whitehead

[email-masked] 

 

From: Lang Gérard <gerard.lang at insee.fr> 

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:37:00 +0200 
Dear All,

1-I personally have no marked preference between North-West (or another equivalent way to write the same) or West.
But, in my quality of statistician (and of member of the french national geographical information council [CNIG]) I am indebted to write that West is a better choice, because inside the official NUTS (Nomenclature des Unités Territoriales pour la Statistique/  Classification of territorial units for statistical use) that is defined and used by the European Union and by the french national statistical institute (INSEE), we find that under the entry "France" (level 0) we have an entry "OUEST/WEST" (level 1) consisting of three official administrative french regions being entries of level 2: "Pays de la Loire", "Bretagne" and "Poitou-Charentes".
So that the region "Bretagne/Brittany" is included in the "french entry" OUEST/WEST.  Some historians would not accept that the administrative region "Bretagne" is veritably all of the historic territory of the "Duché de Bretagne", because this concept includes not only the four departments forming the today official administrative region Bretagne, but also a fifth one "Loire-Atlantique", that is adminstratively included inside the administrative region "Pays de la Loire". But, as Pays de la Loire is also included in WEST, and moreover the territory corresponding to "Loire-Atlantique is geographically  located south and not north from the other four "départements bretons", it is logical to accept that West is a little better than Northwest for breton !

2-On another side, I could absolutely not accept the proposition " Atlantic coast of France" for breton.
The reason is that there is an international accepted nomenclature for "Names and Limits of Oceans and Seas", provided by IHO (International Hydrographic Organization)
That is an international intergouvernemental organisation located in Monaco.
In this nomenclature (that provides for an official classification of the whole maritime domain of the earth and constitutes a natural complement for ISO 3166, that provides for an official coding of the whole land domain of the earth), the whole maritime domain of the world is divided between the five Oceans (Arctic, Antarctic, Atlantic, Indian, Pacific) and each Ocean is divided in several parts, some of them being recognized as Seas.

So that, the french coastal Atlantic is very rich, including coasts of the Metropolitan France (including coasts inside the following Atlantic divisions:inside Mediterranean Sea, like Corsica, inside North Sea and La Manche [English Channel], inside Celtic Sea,  and inside Golfe de Gascogne [and following the IHO classification, the coasts of Bretagne are divided between three touching Seas or divisions: La Manche, Celtic Sea and Golfe de Gascogne]), but also the coasts of the Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Saint-Martin, Saint-Barthélemy, Guadeloupe and Martinique Islands ( all situated  inside the North Atlantic part of the Atlantic Ocean, following the IHO classification) and also the coasts of french Guyana (situated inside the South Atlantic part of the Atlantic Ocean, following the IHO classification).
Moreover, I already explained that AFNOR published in september 2006 a french experimental standard XP-Z44-020 "Code pour la representation des noms des océans et des mers" (Code for the representation of names of Oceans and Seas) that also provides for a coding of all entries inside the IHO classification.

Bien cordialement.
Gérard LANG