Multilingual Ordering –– the European Ordering Rules

English terminology usually distinguishes between sorting and ordering. Sorting is primarily a service for users to facilitate their access to information by presenting it in a structured and predictable way, e. g. by subdividing the information by subject matter (by having several registers to a book, for instance), having multiple indices in a library etc. Ordering –– the arrangement of information in alphabetical sequence –– is in most cases an integral part of this procedure. It is only ordering that I am going to deal with in this article. The ABC is one of the things we normally get to know around six or seven and take for granted ever after. Could there be anything more unspectacular than this perhaps not very logical but certainly wellestablished sequence of letters between a and z? Why is it worth talking about something that any schoolchild knows by heart? Depending on what schoolchild, of course. А и б сидели на трубе, the Russian child sings as well, but it would have to continue quite differently. The German pupil learns early on that ä, while just as valid a sound as the other two, is somewhat different from a and b in that it does not file as a letter of its own in a dictionary or telephone book –– an experience he or she shares with his or her French counterpart when it comes to accented letters. The Danish student, however, will quite happily search for ä after z, where no German would expect it, but where a young Tartar or Uzbek would also look first, were he to use a Latin-based dictionary. In short: Ordering of letters is highly dependent on the cultural expectations. The IT industry has become aware of this and strives to “localize” their software products in this respect. They have investigated