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From: joe@haddock.ISC.COM (Joe Chapman)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Computers and human languages (was Re: What is a byte)
Message-ID: <997@haddock.ISC.COM>
Date: Mon, 24-Aug-87 14:10:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: haddock.997
Posted: Mon Aug 24 14:10:47 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Aug-87 04:27:55 EDT
References: <218@astra.necisa.oz> <142700010@tiger.UUCP> <2792@phri.UUCP> <8708171253.AA21033@ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu> <111@quick.UUCP>
Reply-To: joe@ima.isc.com (Joe Chapman)
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 24
Xref: mnetor comp.std.internat:162 sci.lang:1209

>I was told once (by a respected linguist, as I recall) that English and
>Russian are the ONLY two languages written with unaccented alphabets.

Well, the Russian letter pronounced "yo" is an e with a diaeresis, and
"yeri" looks like a backwards "N" with a breve.  You might argue that
these aren't really accented letters, by claiming:

	1. They aren't next to the unaccented version in the
	standard coallating sequence; in this case you have to
	accept Finnish (with a-diaeresis and o-diaeresis at the
	end of the alphabet) as being in the non-accented
	category.

	2. Absolutely no phonetic or grammatical correlation
	exists between the unaccented and accented versions of
	the characters; in this case you would be wrong.

	3. The characters have developed via evolution from
	utterly distinct earlier forms; from what I recall
	of Old Church Slavonic I don't believe this, but I'm
	open to such an argument.

Joe Chapman
harvard!ima!joe