Compare Strings in a Language

The new function AlphabeticOrder allows strings to be compared in terms of the alphabetic order associated to a language.

AlphabeticOrder returns 1 when the first string should appear before the second one, 0 if they are equivalent, and −1 when they are reversed.

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AlphabeticOrder["z", "å", Entity["Language", "Swedish"]]

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The results from AlphabeticOrder and Order may be different for non-English languages.

In[2]:=

{Order["італьянская", "японская"], AlphabeticOrder["італьянская", "японская", "Belarusian"]}

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The IgnoreDiacritics option allows flexible string comparisons.

In[3]:=

AlphabeticOrder["como", "cómo", Entity["Language", "Spanish"], IgnoreDiacritics -> True]

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This option does not override basic language rules. For example, one letter may be considered as a diacritic in one language but a basic letter in another language.

In[4]:=

{AlphabeticOrder["ñandú", "nandu", Entity["Language", "Spanish"], IgnoreDiacritics -> True], AlphabeticOrder["ñandú", "nandu", Entity["Language", "English"], IgnoreDiacritics -> True]}

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The function AlphabeticSort sorts using AlphabeticOrder as ordering function.

In[5]:=

AlphabeticSort[{"アメリカ合衆国", "日本", "イギリス", "ペルー", "スウェーデン", "インド"}, Entity["Language", "Japanese"]]

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