posted 12-02-98 07:18 AM ET        

� = alt + 1 3 5 ('aa', Swedish)
� = alt + 1 4 3
� = alt + 1 3 2 ('ae', Swedish, Finnish, German)
� = alt + 1 4 2
� = alt + 1 4 5 ('ae', Danish, among others)
� = alt + 1 4 6
� = alt + 1 4 8 ('oe', Swedish, Finnish, German)
� = alt + 1 5 3
� = alt + 1 2 9 ('y' variant , German)
� = alt + 1 5 4
� = alt + 2 2 5 ('ss' variant, German)
� = alt + 1 6 0
� = alt + 1 3 0
� = alt + 1 3 8
� = alt + 1 3 7 ("enunciate this letter")
� = alt + 2 1 1
� = alt + 1 6 8 (can anyone explain why Spaniards do this one?)
� = alt + 2 4 5 OR alt + 2 1 (strange...)
� = alt + 2 3 0 (my, mikro...)
� = alt + 2 4 8 ('degrees')
� = alt + 2 5 1 (to the first power, heheehe)
� = alt + 2 5 2 (to the third power/cubed, strange order)
� = alt + 2 5 3 (you know/squared, hmmm...)
� = alt + 1 7 2 (quarter)
� = alt + 1 7 1 (half)
� = alt + 2 4 3 (three quarters)

plus assorted other goodies like �,

posted 12-02-98 12:01 PM ET            

Unfortunately, these codes will not match unless your codepages are the same (DOS) or maybe the fonts. Anyway, in Windows you can generate any character with the "Character Map" program. A bit tedious, but it works.

The spanish characters "�" and "�" precede a question and an exclamation respectively. Examples:

�De d�nde es? (Where are you from?)
�Qu� interesante! (How interesting!)

This sets the context of the sentence in advance. I think this is a good idea as it clarifies the written language. It is too bad no other (not many) other languages use it.

posted 12-02-98 02:25 PM ET            

However, Mike, didn't you use the same code as me for the specifically German letters?

posted 12-02-98 03:08 PM ET            

Or maybe it has no meaning at all ?

"Now is not the time to cry
it's the time to don't know why..."

posted 12-02-98 03:28 PM ET            

(Could I blame it on a fever relapse? Hmmm... No, probably not, I _was_ down with it for four days, so it should be over by now...)

posted 12-02-98 03:40 PM ET            

You mean: "Hey, you gotta hide your love away " ?

I'd rather say:

"The killer in me is the killer in you..."

posted 12-03-98 05:52 AM ET            

In hindsight I realize my answer was a bit, well, superior-ish. My apologies. The point is/was:

As a computer scientist and amateur linguist, I like languages that are easy to analyze automatically (i.e. no context-sensitive grammar). Most (all) natural languages are not. In that case, if it is easy to find the context, that helps a lot. Spanish is nice in this fashion because of these preceeding upside-down question and exclamation marks.

Now to quotes :-)

German starts quotations with a mark at the "bottom" of the line. In English the opening mark is turned upside-down. In Swedish both marks look the same (i.e. same as closing mark in English). How is it done in Finland? (You are from Finland, right? Does "Tapiolan poika" mean something or is it a "proper" name?)

posted 12-03-98 06:16 AM ET            

Я

The Cyrillic alphabet (used in Russian) has numbers 1040-1071 for uppercase and 1072-1103 for lowercase using ISO10646/Unicode character codes.

posted 12-03-98 06:19 AM ET            

Я Я

The rest of the alphabet hopefully follows :-)

posted 12-03-98 08:44 AM ET            

Det h�r kanske �r pinsamt f�r dig, s� jag skriver p� svenska. Om du kollar min anv�ndarprofil, ser du att min e-postadress slutar med .se ... (Men visst, min mamma flyttade till Sverige fr�n �sterbotten 1956...)

Mitt anv�ndarnamn? Mitt andranamn �r Tapio, den finska skogsguden. I Finland motsvarar 'ola' det svenska 'bo' (nja), t.ex. i fallet "Ainola", som �r vad Akseli Gallen-kallela kallade sitt hus utanf�r Helsingfors (tror jag), efter sin fru Aino.

I mitt fall �r 'tapiola' skogsgudens hem, dvs. skogen, och 'poika' (samma som sv. - jag tror VI l�nat det fr�n finskan!!!) pojke, dvs. "skogens son". Det �r dessutom en av de d�r fasta fraserna/omskrivningarna, vad de nu heter, som t.ex. isl�nningarna anv�nder i sina sagor, fast i det h�r fallet �r det taget fr�n det finska nationaleposet Kalevala, och betyder, faktiskt, "Tapio", skogsguden sj�lv...

Lessen att jag blev lite l�ngrandig d�r, men spr�k �r kul...

En annan sak: Jag �r lingvist, och jobbar framf�r allt med �vers�ttning (lokalisering) av program... Det inneb�r i det h�r fallet att jag faktiskt visste varf�r spanjackerna g�r som de g�r med utrops- och fr�getecken... (D�remot _f�rst�r_ jag faktiskt inte varf�r engelskan och tyskan g�r som de g�r med citattecken. Visst �r det praktiskt om man ska bearbeta text med dator, men de har ju inte funnits s� l�nge. Det �r t.o.m. J�VLIGT jobbigt att pula med de engelska citattecknen n�r man �vers�tter, kan jag ber�tta...)

posted 12-03-98 09:03 AM ET            

Hmm...

Warum sitzt Du im Wald ? Ich sitze im Paulsgarten mit Maria Torget's Vater S�der...

posted 12-03-98 09:50 AM ET            

>Warum sitzt Du im Wald ? Ich sitze im Paulsgarten mit Maria Torget's Vater S�der...

It's easier than you think. 'gata' is the same as German 'Gasse', for instance.

Umm, otherwise, I guess it gets trickier.

OK. I'll do it word for word:

posted 12-03-98 10:24 AM ET            

Where do you sit, BTW? I sit on (not really standard usage) S:t Paul's Street, by (meaning near, quite OK in Swedish) Maria Square on (standard Sw. usage) South (i.e. the part of Central Stockholm called South).

sitter = sitzen, I got that right!
du=Du - another hit!

posted 12-04-98 09:20 AM ET            

I'll give you a little lesson on Finnish grammar if you're interested.

Fomation of words:

word: "Tapiolassammekinko"

Tapio :root
-la :place
-ssa :in
-mme ur
-kin :too
-ko :question