Re: [Rhythmbox-devel] diacritics and sorting

[Gisli Ottarsson <gisli adams com>]

On Thu, 2004-05-13 at 18:06, Chris Petersen wrote:
> > Is this a locale issue or is it more complicated?  For instance, is
> > Björk alphabetized based on the fact that Ö is the last letter in the
> > Icelandic alphabet or should be alphabetized based on the rules of the
> > locale Rhythmbox is running in.
> 
> I don't know about icelandic, but generally, diacritics are considered
> to be modifications of existing letters.  Although this is not always
> the case - in Spanish, ' over vowels indicates emphasis (thus, they
> should sort the same), but the ~ over an n changes the sound it makes
> and is a separate letter (but alphabetically, it appears directly after
> a normal n).  In German, the umlaut changes pronounciation, but I've
> never seen umlauted letters referred to in alphabetical listings, just
> in pronounciation guides (and in the alphabet the only "odd" letter, ß
> (ss), comes directly after the s).

O is the only vowel in Icelandic which has an umlaut.  It is treated as
a separate letter and appears last in the alphabet. All the vowels have
an acute accent version which is also treated like a separate letter
but is alphabetized right after the unmodified vowel, as you describe.

How about ligatures?  Icelandic has one: Æ.  It comes before Ö in the
alphabet.  It would not be correct to treat that as a modified version
of A or E.

I certainly agree that sorting could be improved, but do you sort based
on the locale Rhythmbox is running in (which may not even contain the
letters in the artist's name) or something else?

Gisli


> -Chris
> 
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Gisli Ottarsson, PhD      gisli ottarsson mscsoftware com
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