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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Computers and human languages (was Re: What is a byte)
Message-ID: <2372@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Sep-87 20:14:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: mmintl.2372
Posted: Mon Sep 14 20:14:27 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 18-Sep-87 05:47:51 EDT
References: <218@astra.necisa.oz> <142700010@tiger.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT.
Lines: 40
Xref: mnetor comp.std.internat:240 sci.lang:1369

In article <2938@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com> jeg@hector (Judy Grass) writes:
>In article <2351@mmintl.UUCP> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes:
>>[Somebody 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.
>>
>>The Russian alphabet does have two accented letters,
>
>I think the two letters you refer to are the "i kratkoe"  (short i) 
>and the "jo"  (e with a diaresis).  The i karkoe is ALWAYS written 
>that way and is considered a letter in its own right.

Not ALWAYS.  I have seen it written without the mark.

>In any case, [jo] is printed with the diaresis usually only in texts for
>students of Russian, or for disambiguation.  

If it's used for disambiguation, it's used, or so it would seem to me.

I was taking a basically graphical approach to defining accented letters: if
two letters in an alphabet are the same, except that one has a mark on it
then that one is accented.  (This begs the question of how one distinguishes
"marks" from other parts of the letter.  A first approximation is that a
mark is a disconnected part of the letter -- but this doesn't deal with the
cedilla.)

There are two places to look for a more linguistic definition: alphabets, as
used by native speakers, and alphabetization rules.  When I studied Russian,
the "i kratkoe" was *not* included in the alphabet.  Whether it affects
alphabetization I don't know.

I would be quite surprized if English and Russian were the only languages
with no accented letters, when a letter is regarded as accented only when it
is alphabetized the same as the original form.

By the way, does Greek use accented letters?
-- 

Frank Adams                           ihnp4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Ashton-Tate          52 Oakland Ave North         E. Hartford, CT 06108