question

jjaquinta avatar image
jjaquinta asked

Developer's Console doesn't support accented characters for app name

One of my test app's is a voice-game related to a novel I published on Amazon. The novel is called "The Astoundingly True Tale of José Fabuloso" and so I called the application "José Fabuloso" (that 4th character is latin small letter e with acute, unicode 0xE9). Unfortunately this comes out as "Jos� Fabuloso" (4th character is "replacement character", unicode 0xFFFD). This is kind of odd, since the book actually has the accented character on the URL: http://www.amazon.com/Astoundingly-True-Tale-Jos%C3%A9-Fabuloso-ebook/dp/B00FUTUTIY The character is correctly displayed on the companion app. A related issues is that I'm unsure exactly how the Echo is going to parse someone saying "José Fabuloso". I'd like to use that as my activation word (especially since it's the name of the space ship in the novel), but I've played it safe for now and just chosen "Forty Worlds".
alexa skills kitsubmission testing certification
10 |5000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

3 Answers

The Stig avatar image
The Stig answered
I ran into this issue as well. The work around I used (until Amazon adds support for it) was to modify the spelling so that Echo pronounced the word correctly (i.e. the way it would have with the accent). Then plugged that into the code and it recognized it when I spoke it.
10 |5000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

Nick Gardner avatar image
Nick Gardner answered
Hi, This is the guidance for choosing an invocation name: https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/docs/choosing-the-invocation-name-for-an-alexa-skill It’s highly recommended to follow this guidance to avoid speech recognition or user familiarity issue. The guidance ensures that users have a consistent experience accuracy wise. If you still wants to use a foreign word as the skill invocation name, a homophone equivalent may be used while developing the skill (a word that sounds the same as the foreign word). The invocation name shows up in the companion app for end users, and end users may get confused when they see the homophone. Hence, for certification, the foreign word should be used without the accents. If the foreign word is consistently and easily pronounced, Amazon may be able to help at that time. If you enters the character 'é' directly in the text box for Skill Name, it will work as expected. If you enters the unicode form instead, it will not be converted to 'é'. The UTF-8 character set is supported for Skill Name. Only English Invocation Names are supported. ~Nick
10 |5000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.

jjaquinta avatar image
jjaquinta answered
>Only English Invocation Names are supported. It is naïve to assume that no English words have accented characters. Accented character support and foreign language support are different things. Do not conflate the two.
10 |5000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 2 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 512.0 KiB each and 1.0 MiB total.