The New York Times' Major Linguistic Flaw

(the hill that they want to die on is the hill that I want to die on)

In 1990, a disgruntled reader of the New York Times clocked a crucial recurring error: Words in Hungarian were being published without their essential diacritical marks.¹

These marks are primarily found in Hungarian vowels. The language has seven short vowels (a, e, i, o, ö, u, ü) and seven long ones (á, é, í, ó, ú, ő, ű). Leaving a diacritical mark out of a word might accidentally transform it into a completely different one.

Comically, in his letter to the editor, the reader’s point failed to be fully illustrated. The two Hungarian words that he cited to prove the essentiality of these markings were published — unsurprisingly — without their markings.

His letter was followed by a curt editor's note:

Perhaps this was more excusable in 1990. Google Translate wasn’t around to quickly ensure that you’re getting a word right (or at least, right enough, in a Google Translate kind of way).

And it’s true that languages can have quite unique markings, such as the double acute accent found in the Hungarian vowels ő and ű. I’m no professional when it comes to printmaking techniques, but it feels understandable that less common markings are harder to print.

(Our pro-Hungarian reader above would likely disagree, as he quipped, “Do the great printing machines of The New York Times lack the proper equipment to spell and mark foreign names correctly?”)

But this issue was not just raised once in the 1990s. In 2000, yet another reader wrote in to the Times with a similar gripe — the paper was ignoring the unique letters found in Norwegian words (æ, ø, å).²

This reader seems to be aware of the Times’ unabashed preference for dominant languages (as they has no problem publishing accents for French), arguing, “That Norwegian or Czech or Hungarian aren't the most common of languages shouldn't mean we simply ignore their uniqueness.”

While the Times’ response was slightly more substantial ten years later, the conclusion was disappointingly similar:

The Times’s style manual calls for accent marks in the Romance languages and German only — the languages most widely known to American writers and readers, for which the news paper's typesetting systems are best equipped.

A Strange Hill To Die On

This policy, mandated by the New York Times style guide, is an odd linguistic relic.

Within the context of physical printmaking, it can perhaps be rationalized. But in the digital age, where finding the right letter is as simple as a matter of copy-and-paste, it reads more as prescriptivism taken to an unnecessary extreme.

At the very least, it’s a baffling display of linguistic ignorance — one that more and more people are beginning to notice.

I first caught wind of this issue while reading an article by author Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai.³ (I recently recommended her novel Dust Child on my second newsletter, ZAN!.)

While bafflingly, they publish Quế Mai’s name accurately, the rest of the article contains absolutely no Vietnamese diacritical marks.

Quế Mai is acutely aware of the implications of this omission, and addresses it in a compelling author’s note:

Note: The Vietnamese words in the original version of this essay used diacritical marks. To comply with New York Times style, the marks were removed before publication.

Unfortunately, this practice alters the meaning of the words. In the case of Hỏa Lò Prison, for example, “hỏa” means “fire,” and “lò” means “furnace”: the Burning Furnace Prison. Without the marks, “hoa” means “flowers,” and “lo” means “worry,” rendering the term “Hoa Lo” meaningless. I look forward to the day when The Times and other Western publications celebrate the richness and complexity of Vietnamese, and of all other languages, by showcasing them in their original formats.

Like Quế Mai, I wonder: Shouldn’t a newspaper with a whopping 8.6 million paid digital subscribers worldwide think twice about how they present language?

By intentionally erasing the critical elements of the languages they choose to represent, the New York Times continues to provide a massive disservice to their readers. Their longstanding policy reeks of linguistic supremacy, and cannot be reasonably justified in our global, digital age.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/21/travel/l-accents-067190.html

2. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/08/travel/l-accents-477397.html

3. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/books/hanoi-vietnam-books.html