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From: alan@pdn.UUCP (Alan Lovejoy)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.std.internat
Subject: Re: Character representation
Message-ID: <1082@pdn.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 20-Aug-87 10:06:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: pdn.1082
Posted: Thu Aug 20 10:06:14 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Aug-87 01:04:52 EDT
References: <15381@mordor.s1.gov>
Reply-To: alan@pdn.UUCP (0000-Alan Lovejoy)
Organization: Paradyne Corporation, Largo, Florida
Lines: 20
Xref: mnetor sci.lang:1185 comp.std.internat:139

In article <15381@mordor.s1.gov> pom@s1-under.UUCP () writes:
> To disprove my conjecture, name one language with Latin-based alphabet 
> and one letter in that alphabet, which admits more then one modifier.

French:  "e" can have either a left overstrike, a right overstrike or
a hat "^".  Admittedly, only the right overstrike changes the
pronunciation in MODERN Parisian French.  However, in Navajo vowels
must simultaneously be markable for nasality by a cedilla, as well as
by diacritical marks to indicate other variations.  

All vowels can be nasal/nonnasal and voiced/unvoiced, and I believe
there are exotic languages with even other variations (I'll have to
look that up, though).    

Things get even stickier when you consider the problem of multilingual
text, however (e.g, "I said to him, 'Who are you'?  To which he
answered, 'Je ne parle pas anglais.  Parlez-vous francais'?").

--Alan "Bozhe moi! Kommitjet Gosudarstvjenoj Bjezopastnostji
sljedujet...!!!!" Lovejoy