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A repost from alt.uu.future,alt.education.distance:

From: esz001@cck.coventry.ac.uk (Will Overington)
Subject: Usenet University. Learning Material. Accented Characters on PCs.
Message-ID: <zhjmbdap@cck.coventry.ac.uk>
Date: 9 Jul 92 14:10:08 GMT
Organization: Coventry University, Coventry, UK


Learning material.
-------- --------

Quality level: First circulation in alt.uu.future for comment.

Initial Draft: W. J. G. Overington

Additional Input:

Validated by:


This text is being put out in alt.uu.future as an attempt to get
some learning material available.

It is by no means regarded as me giving a lecture.  Indeed you
will find that in places I have said that I do not know or am
unsure, rather than just leave it out.  Hopefully I can learn
more.

Please comment on this text.

----

This is an introductory text on the subject of expressing
accented characters for some of the major European languages on
PCs.

This text is written for transmission using 7 bit ASCII code and
so does not actually use the PC accented characters.  This is
somewhat inconvenient, yet does provide a starting point for
learning about the use of accented characters on a PC.

In order to make an accented character appear on the screen of a
PC, hold down the Alt key, probably with the index finger of the
left hand, then type the three digit number associated with the
desired character on the set of number keys that are in a three
by three block on the right hand side of the keyboard, then
release the Alt key.  The desired character should then appear.

In particular, do not use the number keys that are in a row above
the letters for this process.  Well, try it the once, to observe
that it does not work but appears to do no harm.

This is a feature of the Disc Operating System (known as DOS) and
can be used in DOS itself and in many packages.

I have used this method for producing accented characters in
Turbo Pascal strings within writeln statements and in Smart
spreadsheet for producing Text Graph posters to describe the list
of accented characters available.

There are ways to get accents for other languages, chiefly
Scandinavian and East European, though I am still learning myself
with those.

This text is different from any other that I have seen on these
accents as it lists them from the language standpoint rather than
as just a list of characters.  There are also other characters in
the PC set that can be accessed in this manner, just by using
different character numbers, though they are not mentioned here
in any detail as this text is intended as a language oriented
text.

Accented Character Nomenclature.

Accents are given various names, such as "e acute", with the
first part being the name of the letter exactly as if reciting
the alphabet and the second part being the name of that type of
accent sign.  The accent signs are as follows,

Grave accent. (pronounced "grarv")
Top left to bottom right, above the letter.

Acute accent. (pronounced "ak-ute")
Bottom left to top right, above the letter.

Circumflex accent. (pronounced "sir-kum-flex")
Bottom left to centre top, then to bottom right, above the
letter.

Umlaut accent. (pronounced "um-lout")
This is the name used in German. I am unsure whether this name is
the correct one for other than German.
Two dots side by side, above the letter.

Cedilla. (pronounced "sed-ill-uh")
Beneath a letter c only, a sickle shaped sign.

Tilde. (pronounced "till-day")
A sign like a small sine wave above the letter.  This is best
known from the Spanish n tilde.  Portuguese has an a tilde and an
o tilde.

In addition there is a double s used in German, derived from the
long s characters of olden times.  Also, French has a special
type of quotation marks and Spanish has an upside down question
mark for starting questions.

[There is an upside down exclamation mark in the PC set. Is this
also used in Spanish?]


The accents and character codes for several languages.

French.

In French, uppercase letters are not usually accented, except E
acute, which is accented.  That is, except for e acute, when a
letter that is accented as a lowercase letter is displayed as an
uppercase letter, the accent is not displayed.  I am unsure as to
whether an uppercase version of c cedilla is shown as C cedilla
or as C unaccented, though, as C cedilla is included in the
character set, I have included it here.

a grave        133
a circumflex   131
C cedilla      128
c cedilla      135
E acute        144
e acute        130
e grave        138
e circumflex   136
e two dots     137
i circumflex   140
o circumflex   147
u two dots     129
u grave        151
u circumflex   150
<< sign        174
>> sign        175

German.

A umlaut       142
a umlaut       132
O umlaut       153
o umlaut       148
ss special     225
U umlaut       154
u umlaut       129

Italian.

a acute        160
a grave        133
e acute        130
e grave        138
i acute        161
i grave        141
o acute        162
o grave        149
u acute        163
u grave        151

Spanish.

a acute        160
e acute        130
i acute        161
N tilde        165
n tilde        164
o acute        162
u acute        163
? upside down  168
! upside down  173

Some intersting exercises.

1. Of the four languages discussed in detail, which accented
character appears in three languages?

2. Which accented character appears in both French and German?

3. Which accented character appears in both French and Spanish?

4. Which accented characters appear in both French and Italian?

5. Which accented characters appear in both Spanish and Italian?

6. Of the four languages discussed in detail, which has the most
accented characters.

7. Of the four languages discussed in detail, which has the most
different letters of the alphabet carrying accents?



Written as a contribution to Usenet University by
W. J. G. Overington at Coventry University, England.

esz001@uk.ac.coventry.cck

INFORMATION ENGINEERING polyglot.

9th July 1992

Provenance.
The information in this learning material is gained from various
items of the author's experience over many years, including in
particular the Riscatype Catalogue of Typefaces, section on
Accented Characters.