accents : Java Glossary

Eastern European languages have additional accents such as š (s caron) in the range 0x0100 to 0x017f in the Latin Extended-A section of Unicode.

Esperanto has 6 accented letters ĉ (c circumflex), ĝ (g circumflex), ĥ (h circumflex), ĵ (j circumflex), ŝ (s circumflex), û (u circumflex).

Detecting Accented Vowels

Removing Accents

Complications

• In English y is sometimes a vowel, though not usually at the beginning of a word.
• You can’t remove accents without knowing the language and in some languages, it is forbidden outright. There is also no algorithmic way to know whether a letter is a vowel or not. In various languages, J, R, L, M and N can be vowels — maybe others.
• In German, ä ö ü ß are not characters with accent, but letters on their own. For the Spanish Ñ this is true, too.
• Would you write an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions), a FAQ or just FAQ. It depends if you pronounce it in your head as F-A-Q, or fak and whether you consider it singular or plural. FAQ.
• In some languages you would replace an accented letter or ligature with two characters.

Learning More