Re: Global and national e-mail address

Dan Oscarsson <[email protected]> wrote:

> Best choice I can see to use for "global" e-mail addresses is the
> Latin alphabet.

If someone wants a global address in addition to one or more local
addresses, I think ASCII is a better choice.  ASCII is widely supported
in operating systems and keyboards, to a much greater extent than the
diacritics.  Keyboards are likely to have the ASCII characters on the
key-caps (maybe not as the primary symbols, but at least as alternate
symbols), but not a full set of diacritics (mine has none).  Many
computers/devices have fonts and input routines that support one local
charset and ASCII, but not the Latin diacritics.

Meanwhile, I don't see how the full Latin alphabet is much better
than ASCII at representing non-Latin-based names.  A global address
is primarily for people not familiar with the language of the local
address.  How is that audience going to benefit from the diacritics?
They still won't know the proper spelling, pronunciation, or meaning of
the name in the original language.  What's the point of using diacritics
to trace fine distinctions of pronunciation that the intended audience
can neither hear nor speak, or to trace fine distinctions of spelling
in an original script that the intended audience can neither read nor
write?

AMC