Of course he does. How on Earth can he teach German or
>French, or expect his students to read a book in a language
>they are familiar with (in large parts of Africa, that
>would be French), without the proper umlauts and grave
>accents?
> 
>
>Even worse, many African languages are written with the >Latin alphabet,
>but using additional letters, such as an F with a curl, >which, until
>very recently weren't supported by most computers or >typewriters, and
>thus conveniently replaced by their nearest >counterparts. You could have

Lead, follow, or get out of the way. Can you supply a way to do this? If so, do it. If not, quit bellyaching. I have gotten a sufficient number of letters and emails from Africans to be aware that in many African countries, learning English is very desirable but is not done well.

 

I proofread for PGLAF a book in French which had been translated into English but had maintained the French forms of a good many names, titles, and other words. As my husband speaks French fluently, I had him check everything I had done. It wound up being posted in two versions: one without the French characters and one with the French characters. As I had worked extremely hard to make sure the French characters were right, I felt sad when I tried to read the version without the French characters. But all the same, I'd rather that readers have that version than no version at all of the book.

 

The principle of the greatest good for the greatest number doesn't mean let's throw out the lesser numbers.

 

IF I AM WRITING IN ENGLISH OR READING IN ENGLISH I don't need the grave accents and the umlauts UNLESS I AM DOING SCHOLARLY WORK. I cannot reasonably express an opinion of how to do works in other languages because I don't speak those languages. I do know that books in English posted in TXT are readable to all English-speaking people, and that includes many people for whom English is their second or third language.

 

Anne