afoken: no, this is normalization. ASCIIfying (e.g. encoding) would destroy non-latin text. This method preserves Greek, Hebrew, etc.

Alexander: I am supporting clients in various languages who want the fuzzy matching that stripping diacriticals provides. It might make for the occasional confusion between German bears and bars... but that's much better than missing out on all the potential correct matches. For example in Hebrew vowels are not normally written except for children. Stripping the vowel and pronunciation diacriticals out lets you compare the text as an adult searcher will likely enter it.

Note that I prefer normalization form NFKD, as it translates more ligatures (though not all, for example the ligature Π)

Originally posted as a Categorized Answer.

In reply to Re: How do I normalize (e.g. strip) diacritical märks from a Unicode string? by brycen
in thread How do I normalize (e.g. strip) diacritical märks from a Unicode string? by Anonymous Monk

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