Editing Esperanto (section)

==== Diacritics and Substitutions ====
{{Main article|Substitutions of the Esperanto alphabet|}}

Even with the widespread adoption of [[Unicode]], the letters with diacritics (found in the "[[Latin Extended-A|Latin-Extended A]]" section of the [[Unicode Standard]]) can cause problems with printing and computing, because they are not found on most physical keyboards and are left out of certain fonts.

There are two principal workarounds to this problem, which substitute [[Digraph (orthography)|digraphs]] for the accented letters. Zamenhof, the inventor of Esperanto, created an "h-convention", which replaces ⟨ĉ⟩, ⟨ĝ⟩, ⟨ĥ⟩, ⟨ĵ⟩, ⟨ŝ⟩, and ⟨ŭ⟩ with ⟨ch⟩, ⟨gh⟩, ⟨hh⟩, ⟨jh⟩, ⟨sh⟩, and ⟨u⟩, respectively.<ref>[[Akademio de Esperanto]] (2007): [http://www.akademio-de-esperanto.org/oficialaj_informoj/oficialaj_informoj_6_2007.html ''Oficialaj Informoj, Numero 6 - 2007 01 21''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190731050315/http://www.akademio-de-esperanto.org/oficialaj_informoj/oficialaj_informoj_6_2007.html |date=July 31, 2019 }}.</ref> The main issue with this convention is its ambiguity: If used in a database, a program could not easily determine whether to render, for example, ⟨ch⟩ as /c/ followed by /h/ or as /ĉ/. Such words do exist in Esperanto: {{lang|eo|[[wikt:senchava|senchava]]}} could not be rendered unambiguously, unless its component parts were intentionally separated, as in ''senc·hava''. A more recent "x-convention" has also gained prominence with the advent of computing, utilizing an otherwise absent ⟨x⟩ to produce the digraphs ⟨cx⟩, ⟨gx⟩, ⟨hx⟩, ⟨jx⟩, ⟨sx⟩, and ⟨ux⟩; this has the incidental advantage of alphabetizing correctly in most cases, since the only letter after ⟨x⟩ is ⟨z⟩.

There are computer [[keyboard layouts]] that support the Esperanto alphabet, and some systems use software that automatically replaces x- or h-convention digraphs with the corresponding diacritic letters (for example, {{lang|eo|Amiketo}}<ref>Amiketo and Tajpi are keyboard layouts which support the Esperanto alphabet for [http://www012.upp.so-net.ne.jp/klivo/amiketo/ Windows] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161123231615/http://www012.upp.so-net.ne.jp/klivo/amiketo/ |date=November 23, 2016 }}, [http://www012.upp.so-net.ne.jp/klivo/amiketo/makamiketo.html Mac OS X] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160405160459/http://www012.upp.so-net.ne.jp/klivo/amiketo/makamiketo.html |date=April 5, 2016 }}, and [http://www012.upp.so-net.ne.jp/klivo/amiketo/linamiketo.html Linux] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161207213204/http://www012.upp.so-net.ne.jp/klivo/amiketo/linamiketo.html |date=December 7, 2016 }}</ref> for [[Microsoft Windows]], [[Mac OS X]], and [[Linux]] and [[Gboard]] and [[AnySoftKeyboard]] for [[Android (operating system)|Android]]). On Linux, the [[GNOME]], [[Cinnamon (desktop environment)|Cinnamon]], and [[KDE Plasma 5|KDE]] desktop environments support the entry of characters with Esperanto diacritics.<ref>{{Cite web|title=typography - How do I type the Esperanto letters with accents on Linux?|url=https://esperanto.stackexchange.com/questions/378/how-do-i-type-the-esperanto-letters-with-accents-on-linux|access-date=2021-09-01|website=Esperanto Language Stack Exchange|archive-date=September 1, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210901164905/https://esperanto.stackexchange.com/questions/378/how-do-i-type-the-esperanto-letters-with-accents-on-linux|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Donald|title=Linux|url=https://www.esperanto.org.nz/learn-and-use-esperanto/kiel-tajpi-en-esperanto/linux/|access-date=2021-09-02|website=Esperanto Association of New Zealand|language=en-NZ|archive-date=September 2, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210902005626/https://www.esperanto.org.nz/learn-and-use-esperanto/kiel-tajpi-en-esperanto/linux/|url-status=live}}</ref>