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From: comm@zeus.bris.ac.uk (M. Murray)
Subject: Re: Languages written without diacritics
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Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 15:04:45 GMT
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Halldor Arnason (harnason@u.washington.edu) wrote:
: "Steve MacGregor" <SteveMac@GoodNet.Com> writes:
: 
: >Daniel von Brighoff <deb5@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote in article
: ><E1EDMA.I5u@midway.uchicago.edu>...
: 
: ><<...and often has umlauts.  Last time I checked, these were not part
: >of the 26 letter Latin alphabet.>>
: 
: >  The question I was answering was about diacriticals; not about extra
: >letters, such as Swedish's , , and , and Icelandic's  and .
: 
: This leads me to ask, what is a diacritical?  As far as Icelandic is
: concerned , , , , , , , ,  and  are all letters in their own
: right.  Does that make Icelandic a language without diacriticals?

All depends what you mean by a letter, and what you mean by a 
diacritical. On my understanding of the words, Swedish and Icelandic both 
use diacriticals. To say that  in some way is not an A with an acute 
accent is nonsense. Similar is the Spanish attitude that ch is one 
letter; more nonsense.

-- 
Martin Murray :: School of Chemistry, Bristol University, BS8 1TS, England
