Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 (MC840302); site boring.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!mcvax!boring!jack From: jack@boring.UUCP Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: Re: about diacritical marks (danish dynamite) Message-ID: <6582@boring.UUCP> Date: Sat, 17-Aug-85 17:34:54 EDT Article-I.D.: boring.6582 Posted: Sat Aug 17 17:34:54 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 21-Aug-85 06:52:37 EDT References: <1065@diku.UUCP> <763@mcvax.UUCP> <1070@diku.UUCP> <775@mcvax.UUCP> <642@kvvax4.UUCP> <483@talcott.UUCP> <780@kuling.UUCP> Reply-To: jack@boring.UUCP (Jack Jansen) Organization: AMOEBA project, CWI, Amsterdam Lines: 24 Apparently-To: rnews@mcvax.LOCAL It seems that the latin alphabet is insufficient to almost all languages, and that three solutions have been chosen by different languages: 1. Take a letter that sounds fairly close to the needed letter, and put a funny sign on top of it. Example: German umlaut, Swedish oA, etc. 2. Take 2 letters that, when pronounced very fast after each other, have some similarity to the wanted sound, and decree that, when seen together, they sound different from usual. Example: au,ou,eu in Dutch, ng in Dutch and English. This has the advantage of not needing more letters, but the disadvantage that it creates ambiguities: 'engrave' is pronounced as en-grave, not eng-rave. 3. Somebody Else's Problem. This means to just use the letters you kind of like for a sound you need, and let other people worry about how to pronounce them. As far as I know, English is the only language that adopted this solution. Two simple examples of the fun this gives : gaol == jail, laughter != slaughter. Now, anyone know why certain languages chose to use the solutions they did? -- Jack Jansen, jack@mcvax.UUCP The shell is my oyster.