use 5.008;
use charnames ();

sub deaccent {
    # split it into characters, then loop through them converting one by one
    my @chars = split //, $_[0];
    for my $char (@chars) {

        # look up the name (e.g. "LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH TILDE")
        my $name = charnames::viacode(ord($char));

        # only try to convert it if it was a valid char and had " WITH "
        if ($name && $name =~ m/(.*) WITH /) {
            # take off the " WITH foo" and see if that is a valid char
            my $neword = charnames::vianame("$1");
            $char = chr($neword) if $neword;
        }
    }
    return join '', @chars;
}