Peter> Hand coded diacritic variant "classes" can still be individually
Peter> enclosed in /[]/ for the case where selective diacritic matching
Peter> needs to be done (e.g. /[eë]/).
This is fine for small sets of variants, but when you need to specify all of
them, the expression grows quite large. Searching an on-line version of the
Koran is one example. Iterating all the possible consonant and vowel
combinations is a lot more work than just ignoring non-spacing characters.
When teaching language, it is often useful to ignore diacritics and locate all
words that have the same underlying pattern. For instance, learning the
differences between Vietnamese words that differ only in diacritics becomes
easier.
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Mark Leisher
Computing Research Lab The first virtue is to restrain the tongue;
New Mexico State University he approaches nearest to the gods who knows
Box 30001, Dept. 3CRL how to be silent, even though he is in the
Las Cruces, NM 88003 right. -- Cato the Younger (95-46 B.C.E)