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Multilingual Sorting Defaults
The companion plugin NavigatorLabels ships with a small, intentional list of articles and elisions that are ignored during alphabetical sorting. These defaults reflect the way real people write across several major languages, and they help keep index pages calm, predictable, and culturally aware.
The list includes:
- English: the, an
- French elisions: l’, d’, qu’
- Portuguese: a, as, o, os, um, uma, uns, umas
- Spanish: el, la, los, las, un, una, unos, unas
These are not meant to be exhaustive. They are simply the most common, stable forms that improve sorting for multilingual wikis without overwhelming the configuration.
Why these defaults exist
- Clarity — Titles like A Casa, The Journey, El Camino, and L’Été sort under C, J, C, and É, where readers expect them.
- Multilingual awareness — Many wikis blend English, Portuguese, Spanish, and French content. The defaults reflect this reality.
- Discoverability — Seeing these examples in the Admin panel signals that the plugin supports more than one language.
- Flexibility — Administrators can add or remove terms at any time. The list is fully configurable.
How it works
NavigatorLabels removes a leading article only when it appears at the very start of a title and is followed by:
- whitespace
- punctuation
- or, in the case of French elisions, a letter
This ensures that:
- L’Été sorts under É
- D’Amour sorts under A
- A‑Casa, A.Casa, and A: Casa all behave consistently
Customizing the list
You can edit the list in:
Admin → Configuration → NavigatorLabels → Articles to ignore when sorting
The field accepts a comma‑separated list of terms.
The plugin is Unicode‑aware and supports both ' and ’ for elisions.
