On 07/07/2004 17:04, Mike Ayers wrote:
...
Are you just trying to kick up dirt here, or were you genuinely unaware that National Geographic is an American publication? I specified "American", as opposed to "English speaking" in this case for that reason, also because the British are known to be more familiar with, and therefore tolerant of, various diacritics. I doubt, however, that this would have any bearing on Vietnamese, which, while it uses familiar looking diacritics, uses them in very unfamiliar (to Europeans in general, as best I understand it) ways.
Indeed we British are more tolerant. Most of us have learned at least a little French and so vaguely know what e acute sounds like, perhaps also e grave, and that e with an accent is not silent, as in café. Other accents we tend to understand as marking stress and/or length, which works for Spanish and probably also António's Portuguese. So we do a lot better in guessing pronunciation than we would do if the diacritics were stripped off completely, even if we don't actually understand properly what they mean.
-- Peter Kirk [EMAIL PROTECTED] (personal) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (work) http://www.qaya.org/
