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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!mcvax!jaap
From: jaap@mcvax.UUCP (Jaap Akkerhuis)
Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.text
Subject: Re: about diacritical marks
Message-ID: <789@mcvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Aug-85 23:55:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: mcvax.789
Posted: Tue Aug 13 23:55:37 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 15-Aug-85 08:34:39 EDT
References: <1065@diku.UUCP> <763@mcvax.UUCP> <1070@diku.UUCP>
Reply-To: jaap@mcvax.UUCP (Jaap Akkerhuis)
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 40
Xref: linus net.nlang:3175 net.text:507

In article <6574@boring.UUCP> guido@mcvax.UUCP (Guido van Rossum) writes:
 > In Dutch, the alphabet is as follows:
 > A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X IJ Z
 > :-)

Of course this hasn't to do anything any more with diacritical marks
but more with "how to find a name in a dictionary".
Of course guido isn't serious. But to explain the subtilities of the
Dutch alphabet takes a while.

There are basically three ways:

The Dutch alfabet:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X IJ Z
Note that Y isn't in the Dutch alfabet.

The tolerant alphabet:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X IJ Y Z
Here it is allowed to freely mix IJ and Y.

The PTT alphabet:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Here the ligature is not considered as a special char, but as a
combination of I and J.

This according to the "Opperlandse taal-& letterkunde", Battus 1981.

But of course, since the Dutch Post office changed the typography to
something worse they changed also to the "Tolerant Alphabet", as I just
found out.

These ways of ordering makes thing rather amusing. In the nearest
dictionary lying around (Prisma Nederlands-Engels...) I find IJsland
under the "I" and in the phone book under "Y".

	jaap	(mcavx!jaap)

PS. How to phone Iceland from Holland? 09-354, costs ca. f 1,80 a
    minute. Write this down, you may need it.