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X-convention

The x-convention or iksokodo or iksa-sistemo is a surrogate writing system for Esperanto that is compatible with ASCII-only systems such as certain e-mail clients.

Since Esperanto does not use the letter X in its native words, many Esperanto enthusiasts have taken to using the letter to signal a diacritical mark that is not available in 7-bit ASCII, placing the "x" after the letter that would have the diacritic in a Unicode-compliant application.

For example, the Section 3 of the Declaration of Boulogne reads in part:

Ĉar la aŭtoro de la lingvo Esperanto tuj en la komenco rifuzis unu fojon por ĉiam ĉiujn personajn rajtojn kaj privilegiojn rilate tiun lingvon, tial Esperanto estas nenies propraĵo.

Using the x-convention to transmit the document over 7-bit ASCII e-mail, the excerpt would read:

Cxar la auxtoro de la lingvo Esperanto tuj en la komenco rifuzis unu fojon por cxiam cxiujn personajn rajtojn kaj privilegiojn rilate tiun lingvon, tial Esperanto estas nenies proprajxo.

Just six mass replace operations would be necessary on either end.

Arguments for

Perceived advantages include:

• It is easy to convert to other encodings;
• It is easy to type from any keyboard with out needing special software or settings; for this reason, it has been used as an input method for many computer programs;
• Since x alphabetically follows all letters in the Esperanto alphabet except z, words written in the x-system can be automatically alphabetized in the correct order, with ĉ (cx) following c;
• With x as a non-Esperanto letter, confusion between h used to indicate a diacritic and the Esperanto letter h is avoided.

Arguments against

Perceived disadvantages of the system include:

• The x-system is different from the h-system recommended by L. L. Zamenhof for occasions when diacritics are unavailable;
• Some French words have the string ux (such as Bordeaux). If these are present in an Esperanto text using the x-system, and the text is automatically converted to another encoding, this will be incorrectly changed.
• Some argue that it looks strange and awkward.

External links

• "Pri apartaj teknikaj bezonoj rilate al niaj alfabeto kaj ortografio" (declaration of the Akademio de Esperanto January 21 2007) (Esperanto)