From: Joao Pedrosa <joaopedrosa@...>
Date: 2004-04-06T22:36:45+09:00
Subject: Re: how to match acented letters on windows


Hi,

--- Sam Roberts <sroberts@certicom.com> wrote:
> Wrote "Mehr, Assaph (Assaph)" <assaph@avaya.com>, on
> Tue, Apr 06, 2004 at 04:30:34PM +0900:
> > 
> > > I just noticed that accented letters like ������
> (actually, if someone
> > > can see them correctly in this message, either)
> > > are not matched by /[a-z]/ or \w on windows.
> > 
> > > I've not tryed on *nix with proper locale set,
> but I wonder if,
> > > anyway, there is something special I should do
> to allow this kind of
> > > special letters to be matched as letters.
> 
> Are you sure you want to do this?
> 
> In latin languages, like french, you can strip the
> accents, and you have
> basically the same pronunciation (though my
> girlfriend doesn't agree,
> but my pronounciation of her language is so heavily
> accented anyhow, I
> can't seeing it matter). But, there are other
> languages where a
> character with an accent is a *completely* different
> vowel. I can't
> recall the details, but one of the northern European
> languages famously
> has its two most common vowels (think "e" and "o" in
> english)
> distinguished by an accent. English speakers (myself
> included!) tend to
> strip all accents while reading, assuming they are
> some kind of fine
> detail, just a small modification of the basic
> sound, but that's not
> true in a number of languages.

Sometimes accented letters are only pronunciation
helpers, but some words are differentiated by them as
well. Take these Portuguese words as an example:
Est� -> equals _is_ as in "here is my cousin".
Esta -> equals "this" as in "this house is for sale".

Cheers,
Joao

 
> Cheers,
> Sam


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