The French may have some unusual words for modern terminology,
especially in I.T., but I believe their choice of words used for
music in general (solfege, music theory etc.) are very appropriate
and make both English and American terminology awkward and clinical.
But this is a much older and traditionally based language, computer
terms are comparatively new and who is to say that the US or any
other country for that matter has 'got it right'. You only need to
read any computer mag to realise that the vast majority of the
terminology has been made up by the techie geeks who are only too
happy to try and keep their little world beyond the understanding of
the average Joe punter.
Is it not the differences between countries and languages that make
them so diverse and interesting? Should we all be the same? The world
would certainly be a poorer place culturally.
On the subject of the actual software, I have noticed that Finale is
very popular in France. There are frequent seminars and many music
schools and institutions use and teach it. Many examination sheets
and short instrumental pieces have been produced in Finale, although
with plenty of notational errors! They have a regular french language
version which comes out around 9 months after the US version, (2007
came out this last week) this is about the time of the 3rd or 4th
tech upgrade to the version ;-)
I have yet to come across or hear mention of the Berlioz application
so I cannot comment anymore than to say that it doesn't appear to be
as popular as Finale. Sibelius also gets a healthy following.
Jonathan
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