Ataturk took Turkish out of the Arabic alphabet (a slightly extended
one), moving it into the Roman alphabet with many orthographic marks;
and in doing so he standardized it, eliminating most of the messy,
irregular usages and orthography that accumulate in all natural
languages that are not under the firm control of an academy.

Appearance can also be [nearly] the same when functions are disjoint,
and linguists disagree about whether appearance should then be
exploited.

The umlaut in German---as in das Buch, die Bücher---is in many
typefaces identical to the diaresis in English, as anciently in
coöperate.  Should this overloading be exploited?  My answer in
constructing translation tables has always been yes, but there is a
body of very respectable opinion that insists that the proper answer
is no.  (The diaresis has all but disappeared from written English,
but the umlaut is very much alive in German.)

John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA

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