Period convention in abbreviations in languages different to English

Dorico
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Hello.

I’m composing a score in which I’m using Portuguese names for the instruments. I believe that, in English, the convention of using a period when the abbreviation is not the last letter of the word is used. The same convention can be used in Portuguese (at least, Portuguese from Portugal). However, I’ve observed that translated abbreviations only include the period if that’s the case in the English name for that instrument, even if it’s not the last letter in the translated name.
For instance, the Horn abbreviates as Hn in English, and “Trompa” is set to “Tr”, even if it should have a period (I would abbreviate as “Tpa”, by the way to avoid confusion with other instruments, which, incidentally, uses the last letter of the name, but I digress). The same happens with Violin, which is “Violino” in Portuguese and should be “Vln.” and not “Vln”, or Guitar (Guitarra).
I couldn’t find an example of the opposite (a dot in Portuguese when it shouldn’t), and no one comes to mind. But I’ve encountered some odd choices of abbreviations and some wrong translations. For instance, Accordion should be “Acordeão”, and I would abbreviate as “Acord.” or something similar (It’s Acordeon, abbreviated “Acorde.”). Hurdy-gurdy is not translated, and should be “Sanfona”. I don’t believe any of these are correct in any variant of Portuguese.

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I believe that this is current standard in British English (and has become so within the past half-century or thereabouts). In the US, it remains customary to use a period after all abbreviations.

But some US music publishers (including two for whom I’m preparing editions) choose to have no periods after abbreviations of instrument names in their scores.

None of which answers your needs, of course. But this is a fraught and complex topic, even within a single language.

1 Like
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Yes, I thought so! I raised the topic just because this convention is applied inconsistently, as if the word was written in English.

As a matter of fact, I think I was mistaken and Portuguese abbreviations should, as a general rule, have a trailing dot, even when the last letter of the word is the last letter of the abbreviation. Source:

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For reference: This thread from last year when a change was made to the pref for “circa”.