---
layout: post
title: "Down with diacritics"
comments: true
---

I've just come across an anonymous post on an obscure forum.
The post is as entertaining as it is informative.
I couldn't have put it better myself:

> Typing diacritics is just a waste of life - I recommend you all
> drop them out of your over-analytical languages and do something
> more constructive than twisting your fingers in odd ways on your
> keyboards to type them.
>
> European diacritic-infested spellings were invented by library
> nerds, unlike English, which evolved from dumb
> anglo-saxon-norse-farmer-speak, and is therefore thankfully free
> of them. Plus, because Henry VIII sacked the monks, there were
> no crazed scholars hellbent on compllcating the language any
> longer.
>
> Dutch has done pretty well, too, in ridding itself of diacritic
> hell. But sadly, German advisors totally ruined Turkish with
> their own sickening diacritics.

Nailed it.

But hey, there's no need to hold out hope for language reforms.
I have [a script that not only removes diacritics, but
also transliterates non-Latin characters into English
phonemes](https://github.com/revl/anglicize). Problem solved.

Add a forgotten post from 2015
Add a forgotten post from 2015
