Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site spp3.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwspp!spp3!urban
From: urban@spp3.UUCP (Mike Urban)
Newsgroups: net.internat
Subject: Typography: accented letters
Message-ID: <254@spp3.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-Jan-86 15:06:16 EST
Article-I.D.: spp3.254
Posted: Tue Jan 28 15:06:16 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Feb-86 02:50:05 EST
Reply-To: urban@spp3.UUCP (Mike Urban)
Organization: TRW, Redondo Beach  CA
Lines: 35


In a discussion with some friends about the language Esperanto,
we observed that one difficulty that the language appears to
present is that it contains accented letters (in the case of
Esperanto, circumflexed consonants, which do not appear in the
ISO proposed LATIN-1 character set).  This is mostly a problem
on typewriters (which don't have a circumflex key), but it's a
problem with computers too, since the circumflex can't be used
as an overstrike character on most CRT screens, and accented
letters are separate letters which don't have their own key.
We quickly realized that this is a problem in typography that
goes beyond Esperanto.

My question is twofold:  First: in countries that have accented
letters (France, for example), how do typewriters work?  Do
they have a circumflex key (e.g., for c^ote) that doesn't move
the carriage (or typeball) or ...?  The same question for
computer keyboards.  Second: how do American-type computers (or
their owners?) approach the problem of typing foreign
characters, as for foreign-language electronic mail or
foreign-language teaching programs?  Is there a "standard"
typographic convention for ANSI keyboards when typing foreign
characters?  What is it?

While Esperanto is one language not addressed by LATIN-1, this
particular problem of typography goes beyond Esperanto; it is
not solved by an extended character set unless you issue
LATIN-1 keyboards (with a gazillion keys for all the accented
vowels, etc.) to all computer owners.  In other words, even if
there's a standard binary code for Scandinavian slashed-o, I
still don't know how to type it on my present keyboard.

Thanks in advance,

	Mike