How to Convert Symbols and Accent Letters to the English Alphabet with Java?

Converting Symbols and Accent Letters to the English Alphabet with Java

Problem:

Many characters in the Unicode chart resemble letters in the English alphabet but may have variations or accents. Converting these characters to their English counterparts is a challenge. For example, the letter "A" has over 20 different Unicode variations.

Solution:

To convert these characters in Java, follow these steps:

1. Normalize the String: Use the Normalizer class to normalize the string using the Normal Form Decomposed (NFD) form. This step decomposes accented characters into their base character and combining diacritics.
2. Remove Diacritics: Use a regular expression to remove the combining diacritics from the normalized string. These diacritics are Unicode characters that modify the base character's pronunciation or appearance.
3. Replace Similar Characters: Create a mapping between the Unicode characters and their English alphabet counterparts. Replace the normalized string's characters with their mapped equivalents.

Here's a Java implementation of the algorithm:

import java.text.Normalizer;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;

public class UnicodeToEnglishConverter {

    private static final Map<String, String> unicodeToEnglishMap = new HashMap<>();

    static {
        // Initialize the mapping
        unicodeToEnglishMap.put("ҥ", "H");
        unicodeToEnglishMap.put("Ѷ", "V");
        unicodeToEnglishMap.put("Ȳ", "Y");
        unicodeToEnglishMap.put("Ǭ", "O");
        unicodeToEnglishMap.put("Ƈ", "C");
    }

    public static String convert(String unicodeString) {
        // Normalize the string in NFD form
        String nfdNormalizedString = Normalizer.normalize(unicodeString, Normalizer.Form.NFD);
        
        // Remove diacritics
        Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("\p{InCombiningDiacriticalMarks}+");
        String deaccentedString = pattern.matcher(nfdNormalizedString).replaceAll("");
        
        // Replace similar characters with English equivalents
        StringBuilder englishString = new StringBuilder();
        for (char c : deaccentedString.toCharArray()) {
            englishString.append(unicodeToEnglishMap.getOrDefault(String.valueOf(c), String.valueOf(c)));
        }
        
        return englishString.toString();
    }
}

Example Usage:

String unicodeString = "tђє Ŧค๓เℓy";
String englishString = UnicodeToEnglishConverter.convert(unicodeString);
System.out.println(englishString); // Output: the Family

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