Knack of processing accents

[Yuri P. Nekrutenko]

Paul Dessart on Aug 08, 12:12 wrote

>   This is not a taxonomic matter, but it could be useful (also in private
>   mail) to many taxacomers when they don't write in English.
>
>   Most messages are written in English; when French and Italian are used,
>   or any language with letters marked with an accent; many 'servers'
>   translate them into cabalistic formula ( =E8, =E9, etc., or even more
>   complex). When words must be written in italics, they are bordered with
>   the <_> sign (for instance: _Homo sapiens_).
>   Personally, I use and suggest some other conventions/agreements. I
>   substitute the acute accent by an apostrophe, the grave accent by quote
>   mark, the circunflex accent by a majuscule, the cedilla by a virgule. And
>   to make the text more readable, I set 2 spaces between each word.
>   This is easy and quick to do on a normally written text if one uses a
>   <macro-command> of the word processing to realize all changes
>   automatically.
>   I exemplify my suggestion with its translation into French.

The system proposed above sounds to be both too complicated and
innatural in use (because of innatural derivation). Following are
suggested tricks hoped to be of some use for languages with additional
signs (Slavic languages worthy of special consideration).

French:
' - accent aigu: e'
` - accent grave: e` - le'pidopte`res
^ - accent circonflexe: a^ - ma^le, me^me
, - ce'dille: Franc,ais

German
" - Umlaut: a", o", u",  e"
& - Eszett - wei&

Spanish
~ - Espan~a

Swedish
a* - Va*r (a circle over a)
a" and o" - as in German (same in Finnish)

Norvegian, Danish
a* - Istga*rd = Istgaard
o/ - o/st
{ae} - ligature: Aakj{ae}r

Rumanian
a`' - Fa`'ca`'ni
a^ - Ca^mpeni (old orthography)
i^ - Ci^mpeni (recent orthography)
t, - T,a`'rani
s, - s,tiint,a

Portugal - as in French and Spanish: Monc,a~o, Sa~o Paulo

If the above text is displayed on your scereens as it looks on mine,
then proposed system works - please, use it. - Yuri.

Yuri P. Nekrutenko
Institute of Zoology
UA-252601 Kiev 30, MSP
U K R A I N E
ypnekrut at mbat.freenet.kiev.ua