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Research draft

diacritic

vr.tr.diacritic · XCT.QLT

Let an agent handle diacritics by mark, script, function, encoding and correct use in names and text processing.

Thing Registry Cross-cutting context

Research draft, second pass

A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.

written by Claude from model knowledge without web access - no source was read, every claim is a lead to verify

Researched by: Claude

Purpose and description

Let an agent handle diacritics by mark, script, function, encoding and correct use in names and text processing.

A mark added to a letter or character to change its pronunciation, meaning or tone, such as accents, umlauts, cedillas, tone marks, the Arabic nuqta and the Japanese long vowel mark.

What it is for: Distinguishing sounds, tones and meanings in writing.

It can be identify a diacritic and its function; type and encode diacritics correctly; preserve diacritics in names; handle diacritics in search and sorting.

Distinguishing features

Modifies a base character

Changes sound, tone or meaning

Encoded as combining or precomposed characters

Often stripped incorrectly by software

What it looks like

Small marks above, below or through letters.

How it is recognised

Accents, umlauts, cedillas, tone marks

Combining and precomposed characters

Script-specific marks such as nuqta

Related models

is a kind of - category

additional sign

is used in - context

writing system

is encoded by - standard

Unicode

affects - computing

string comparison

In practice

Families and kinds

accents such as acute and grave

umlaut and diaeresis

cedilla and ogonek

tone marks

script-specific marks

Identifiers

Unicode code point combining diacritical marks block characters

Standards and regulation

Unicode Standard and normalisation forms

National orthography rules

Failure modes and hazards

Stripping diacritics from names

Normalisation mismatches in search

Mojibake from wrong encoding

Also called

chōonpucá-nháytwo dotsnuqtanasal vowel markertone markumlaut◌𑏉Syriac diacriticSharada diacriticGlagolitic diacriticCyrillic diacriticGaray diacriticBamum diacriticdiacritic numeralSamaritan diacriticKannada diacriticTulu-Tigalari diacriticKhmer diacriticKhudabadi diacriticMalayalam diacriticrough breathingpolytonic orthography of Greekniqqudaccent symbol◌̣Tiberian vocalizationtzereviramabreathing markHebrew diacriticskamatzCyrillic alphabet diacriticLatin alphabet diacriticbangjeom◌̤segolpatachpayerok◌̈

+144

Where this came from

wikidata · CC0 1.0

Source repository Registry entry point

Drafted structure

Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 4 bundles · 8 layers · 8 findings · 16 questions.

Mark Which diacritic.

Marks differ.

Identity

Name.

Identity

Diacritic.

  1. Which diacritic is it, and what is its name? definition
  2. In which languages is it used? provenance

Function

Sound or meaning.

Function

Function.

  1. What does it change: sound, tone or meaning? definition
  2. Does it make a separate letter in the alphabet? definition
Encoding Digital text.

Encoding needs care.

Unicode

Code points.

Unicode

Encoding.

  1. Is it encoded as a precomposed or combining character? definition
  2. Which normalisation form is used? boundary

Input

Typing.

Input

Typing.

  1. How can it be typed on this keyboard? action
  2. Is a font available? boundary
Processing Search and sorting.

Software often mishandles diacritics.

Search

Matching.

Search

Search.

  1. Should search treat accented and unaccented forms as equal? boundary
  2. How is that configured? action

Sorting

Collation.

Sorting

Collation.

  1. Which collation rules apply for this language? provenance
  2. Does sorting follow local expectations? boundary
Names Respect.

Names deserve correct spelling.

Preserve

Correct spelling.

Preserve

Preserving names.

  1. Is the person name kept with its diacritics? boundary
  2. Does the system support it? boundary

Transliteration

Other scripts.

Transliteration

Transliteration.

  1. How are diacritics handled in transliteration? definition
  2. Which standard applies? provenance

What the second pass must settle

  • Should each diacritic be a separate entry?
  • How should language-specific rules be linked?
  • How should normalisation guidance be linked?
Draft as JSON