1.0E. Special Letters, Diacritical Marks, and Punctuation Marks

Special Letters, Diacritical Marks, and Punctuation Marks (1.0E. Language and script of the description )

Use the double underscore ( ) as the conventional means of signaling special letters (including superscript and subscript letters), diacritical marks, and punctuation marks for which there is no exact representation in the character set. Use the double underscore with the nearest roman equivalent in cases in which the roman equivalent is obvious, e.g., . When the nearest roman equivalent is not obvious or there is doubt that it is obvious, it is necessary to establish the equivalent, after which the list of equivalencies will be updated. The equivalencies below have been established to date, mostly from the International Phonetic Alphabet. Note that the IPA used some Greek letters; when it is judged by the context (usually some form of linguistic study) that the Greek letter probably derives from its used in the IPA, use the double underscore convention or the equivalency indicated below, not the convention for Greek letters given above.

Note that the use of double underscore convention does not always insure a one-for-one equivalency; the intent, instead, is to signal those cases in which the character used in the catalog record is not an exact replication of the character in the source.

Exception 1: Do not use the double underscore convention in the following cases; use instead the equivalent indicated:

Exception 2: Do not use the double underscore convention for the inverted question mark and exclamation point in Spanish; instead, do not transcribe the inverted form of these marks at all.