In the future, will the English language be full of accented characters?Here's something to think about as you sip your latté (or your piña colada) while listening to Beyoncé (or Mötley Crüe): Just how important to the English language are accented characters? And will they withstand the test of time?We've included accents in some words for a long time; after all, we like to steal words from languages such as French, Italian, and German. But they're not an official part of the English alphabet, partly because they weren't so easy to type or typeset, and partly because … well, they're not English, are they? But the letters w and j and q weren't English originally, either. Nor was the apostrophe. And the letters þ and ð were English until we got rid of them. So is the accent on its way out, or is it seeping in?Technology has long influenced our use of letters in language. F
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