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From: corelib@husc4.HARVARD.EDU (core library)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Computers and human languages (was Re: What is a byte)
Message-ID: <2739@husc6.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 23-Aug-87 22:28:37 EDT
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Posted: Sun Aug 23 22:28:37 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Aug-87 04:12:13 EDT
References: <218@astra.necisa.oz> <142700010@tiger.UUCP> <2792@phri.UUCP> <8708171253.AA21033@ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu> <111@quick.UUCP>
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In article <111@quick.UUCP> srg@quick.UUCP (Spencer Garrett) writes:
>
>I was told once (by a respected linguist, as I recall) that English and
>Russian are the ONLY two languages written with unaccented alphabets.  I
>know you have to add the qualifier "modern" to make that true, and maybe
>"major" as well, although I don't know of any exceptions right off.
> 				...
>This particular professor is extremely fond of Arabic script and has spent
>a great deal of time teaching TEX to handle it.)

Unlike Arabic, Modern Persian is written with no accents.  Accents are
only used in children's books and occasionally in print with a foreign
word.  This would perhaps be analogous to similar occurences in English.

In fact, a Persian alphabet would be easier to implement than an
English one (in terms of size) because there are 52 letters in the
Enlish language:  capitals and lower case.  These have to be specified
by the writer, while in Persian, the shape (or, loosely, case) of each
letter is absolutely determined by whether it has a connecting letter
or space before or after it.  

Since the Persian alphabet has only 32 letters, moreover, that would
leave at least 20 spaces for the 6-odd accents which are so
infrequently used.

Just in case Persian ever becomes that popular...
=======================================================================
Mark Towfigh             "Did you take that?"   "Soitanny not!"
                         "Oh, a wise guy, huh?" "Aaa-aaa-aaaaa-o-o-o-o"
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