Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site sphinx.UChicago.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxj!mhuxn!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar From: mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: Re: more diacritical marks... Message-ID: <1000@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> Date: Sun, 18-Aug-85 01:06:00 EDT Article-I.D.: sphinx.1000 Posted: Sun Aug 18 01:06:00 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 20:22:45 EDT References: <487@talcott.UUCP>, <998@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> Organization: U Chicago -- Linguistics Dept Lines: 37 My my, what's the problem here. Some of our Scandinavian friends expressed the modest wish (probably the forlorn hope) that display devices and character sets could handle their national alphabets a little better (including order). Thomas Breuel replied, essentially, that these folks are asking for too much, they ought to be able to get by with the standard 26 used in English, no diacritics or additional characters. Charles Blair here at U.Chicago has a followup in defense of Breuel (not that we've seen any complaints against him come through here yet), on grounds that don't seem to me very relevant. The comparison with the Japanese romanisation question has some general or distant relevance, but it doesn't bear at all directly on this particular question. Nor do Blair's phonological comments. It's true, of course, that the alphabet we use doesn't provide a one-one mapping for the sounds of English. Ja...und?? The wish expressed by the Scandinavians was not for a writing system that would allow for phonemic spelling of their languages, it was rather just that they would like to be able to use on their computers the written alphabets they already have. C'mon, fellas. Don't you think it's a little heavy handed to argue that our alphabet should prevail because much computer development took place in an English-speaking (rahter, -writing) context? Try the shoe on the other foot. What if the standards had come from a country that doesn't use `W'? Now the Americans come along and say Isn't there some way you guys could please fit in `W', just for us to use here? And the answer comes: well you don't really need it, just use 'U'. Or else: okay, we'll put it in for you in place of some punctuation, at the end of the collation sequence (or somewhere in the 8-bit set). Meanwhile all our phone books and dictionaries still have it between `V' and `X', so either we have to accept that computer-generated lists will have W-words in the wrong place or we have to include a wasteful kludge in every sorting routine to put the W-words back in the right place. In any case, even if you're not convinced of their need for some adjustment, what's your objection? Nobody wants to take away our ASCII for domestic consumption. -- -- Mitch Marks @ UChicago ...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar