Re: On language-dependent defaults for character-folding

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <address@hidden> writes:
> Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:
>>   > As a Norwegian, I think o should match ö, but not ø.
>> Could you explain why that would be best for you?
> ø is a different letter from o in our 29 letter alphabet, and
> is a separate key on our keyboards.  ö is just a variation of
> o.

Maybe you point about the keyboard can be a useful illustration
in the debate.  (Maybe it has been brought up alread, in which
case I apologize.)

An English-speaking user would typically have a keyboard with
the letters a-z, so it can be quite handy to have o match ö and
ø, and n match ñ.  Because it's somewhat inconvenient to type
those letters on such a keyboard.

Swedish-speaking users probably have keyboards with a separate
ö key, so it's easy to search for ö without any folding.  (The
situation for ø is less clear; I can imagine that some Swedish
user would like it to be matched by both o and ö, or just o, or
just ö.)

Similarly, Spanish keyboards have a separate ñ key (I learned
that just now).