Grapheme clusters, a.k.a.real characters

[Chris Angelico]

On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 12:28 PM, Mikhail V <mikhailwas at gmail.com> wrote:
>  ChrisA wrote:
>>Tell me, is "å" an a with some 'dirt', or is it a separate character?
>
> From the way you are asking, it seems that you are planning some tricky
> business again... Hope not to argue on terminology again, å simply
> makes the text flow inconsistent, such things are parasitic for
> readability regardless if someone proclaims it a separate character or
> not. In a reader-oriented medium should be used only as a last resort.
>
> Looks like "a" whith a circle above, so yes, an "a" with a good deal of dirt.

Norwegian people might take issue with that. It's not "a with circle
above", it's the distinct letter å (pronounced as per the sound the
letter represents, approximately "aw").

>>Is "i" an ı with some dirt, or a separate letter? Oh wait, you
>>probably think that "i" is a letter, and "ı" is the same letter but
>>with some dirt missing.
>
>  "i" is a letter, you can't just remove the dot. So there can be just
> dirt and there is
> 'dirt' which is in fact the natural part of the letter. Like a serif
> for example.
> but I am not expecting your acceptance of these statements,
> I am just telling what follows from my long experience with the topic.
> Though you can try to replace "i" with "ı" globally in a text and there
> are chances you will notice something. Then you can try also with å.

Yep! Nobody would take any notice of the fact that you just put dots
on all those letters. It's not like it's going to make any difference
to anything. We're not dealing with matters of life and death here.

Oh wait.

https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1017243/cellphone-localisation-glitch

I'll leave you with that thought.

ChrisA