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From: hmj@tut.fi (Matti J{rvinen)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Change the software or the alphabet?
Message-ID: <1924@kuukkeli.tut.fi>
Date: Mon, 26-Oct-87 06:35:34 EST
Article-I.D.: kuukkeli.1924
Posted: Mon Oct 26 06:35:34 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Oct-87 05:47:50 EST
References: <1446@haddock.ISC.COM> <365@zuring.cwi.nl>
Reply-To: hmj@kuukkeli.UUCP (Hannu-Matti J{rvinen)
Organization: Tampere University of Technology, Finland
Lines: 34
Xref: mnetor comp.std.internat:298 sci.lang:1616

In article <1446@haddock.ISC.COM> karl@haddock.isc.com (Karl Heuer) writes:
>                                          The alphabet is the servant of Man,
> not the other way around; thus it is appropriate to suggest that it should
> evolve to meet Man's changing needs.
> If it is painful to adapt the software to handle the peculiarities of certain
> languages/alphabets (I have in mind Chinese, Japanese, and to a lesser extent
> the accented letters of some European languages, and to some extent English),
> then it is reasonable to consider the possibility that the language/alphabet
> should change instead of the software.  I am not saying that the former *must*
> be the one to change, only that it should be considered.  I recognize that
> there's a lot of inertia to overcome, but might not the benefits be worth it?

Is this a joke or are you really stupid enough to be serious?
Those so called "accented" letters are very important in some languages.
How would you change alphabets using them as separate letters?
If { refers to a with dots (umlaut a), I may write two Finnish
words
	valittaa  and
	v{litt{{
having meanings "mourn" and "deliver". So, replacing { with a can not be
done.  Letter e can be after letters a or o, so replacing { with ae
can not be done.

Finnish is written as it is spoken.  Every letter has only one way to
pronounce it.  If you drop letters off, how would you write words
containing those letters?

This all is (partially) true for several languages (e.g. Swedish and German).
KEEP YOUR NASTY FINGERS OUT OF OUR ALPHABET AND FIX YOUR PROGRAMME(R)S!!

-- 
Hannu-Matti Jarvinen, Tampere University of Technology, Finland
Project EAST - European Advanced Software Technology
hmj@tut.fi, hmj@tut.uucp, hmj@tut.funet (tut.ARPA is not the same computer).