Acheh or Aceh, Henry or Henri, Centre or Center? Who cares?

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The historic agreement signed by the government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Geneva on Monday was a nightmare for writers and language experts, whose job it is to maintain standards and consistency over spelling.

The text of the agreement spells Aceh in the old Indonesian or Malay language as "Acheh", and GAM is one of a few institutions left in the world that is still spelling it that way when writing about the tiny territory in the northern tip of Sumatra.

Most international institutions, including the UN, have adapted the new, improved Bahasa Indonesia spelling system introduced in 1975.

The common spelling before 1975 was "Atjeh"; GAM, which was founded in 1976, uses an even older spelling.

It is not clear whether the use of "Acheh" throughout the text of the peace agreement signed in Geneva was one of the concessions Jakarta made to GAM.

If that was the case, international opinion on the matter of how Aceh is spelt is decidedly with the government in Jakarta. Yahoo!'s search engine, for example, lists 252,000 entries for "Aceh" and churns out only 4,680 for "Acheh".

There was also confusion about the exact spelling of the Geneva-based institution, Henry Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, which has been brokering the peace talks between Indonesia and GAM since 2000.

Named after the founder of the Red Cross Movement, his original French spelling was "Henri", but probably because of his international fame, his name has been anglicized (or should it be anglicised?) in most texts to become "Henry".

One of Dunant's biographies stated that the confusion originated from the man himself, who used "J. Henry Dunant" in his 1862 book Un Souvenir de Solferino (A Memory of Solferino). The confusion has remained since, with both spellings commonly used.

The Geneva-based center uses "Henry Dunant" in all its media releases, and this is the spelling commonly found in major international publications.

Note that it also uses the British spelling rather than the American spelling for "Centre". It also uses the British spelling for "dialogue".

The White House, not exactly a standard-bearer of the English language, is sowing even more confusion by injecting an American element into the spelling war.

In its statement lauding the Geneva agreement on Monday, President George W. Bush's office referred to the Geneva institution as "Henri Dunant Center".

Confused? But who cares about the spelling war anyway when peace is coming to Aceh.