# What language is this odd email sender using? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 16, 2019, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this-odd-email-sender-using/831230 "2019-03-16T18:16:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this-odd-email-sender-using/831230/1 "2019-03-16T18:16:36Z")
I’m starting to get a flow of junk email coming from a sender using a couple of letters I don’t recognize. It’s a lower-case **y** with an umlaut, then a lower case **p** where the post extends above and below the round part, then an upper case V,Q,Z, and 1 just in today’s inbox. The subject lines are the same two first letters followed by V,G,T, and I, respectively. All these 3-letter groups. The body of the mail is ordinary junk, pitching ink cartridges, Quicken Loans, Gold Trust scams, and the like. The use of the odd letters makes it look more toxic than the usual spam, but I’m curious about the letters. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this-odd-email-sender-using/831230/2 "2019-03-16T18:34:20Z")
The “lower case p” is probably a thorn > **[Thorn (letter)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(letter))** > > Thorn or þorn (Þ, þ) is a letter in the Old English, Old Norse, Old Swedish and modern Icelandic alphabets, as well as modern transliterations of the Gothic alphabet, Middle Scots, and some dialects of Middle English. It was also used in medieval Scandinavia, but was later replaced with the digraph th, except in Iceland, where it survives. The letter originated from the rune .mw-parser-output .script-runic{font-family:"BabelStone Runic Beagnoth","BabelStone Runic Beorhtnoth","BabelStone Runic Beo... The only modern language that uses it AFAIK is Icelandic. The y with an umlaut might be an ij digraph. It is used in Dutch and a few related languages. But I suspect you’re simply getting some font encoding issue. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this-odd-email-sender-using/831230/3 "2019-03-16T19:10:54Z")
I didn’t want to copy the letters to my post, because I thought it would come out wrong in others’ computers that lacked that font. Sometimes I do get font encoding issues, such as an apparent apostrophe showing up in an email as a Yen symbol in somebody’s email. ---
**Author:** ![dstarfire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dstarfire/32/5762_2.png) [@dstarfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dstarfire)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this-odd-email-sender-using/831230/4 "2019-03-16T21:15:36Z")
If you’re using windows, it’s got a handy utility called the character map. It shows pictures of all the characters it knows that you can select and then copy for pasting into a forum. It’s based on the unicode character set, so it should be universal. Here’s your lower-case y with umlaut: ÿ an odd-looking lower-case p: ƥ I poked around in there a bit and found these fun ones: here’s an e on a display stand: ȩ some boobs (or, possibly, buttcheeks): Ѿ punctuation made specifically for “what the …” moments: ‽ That last one is called an interrobang and was a fad in the 70’s, according to the BBC show QI. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this-odd-email-sender-using/831230/5 "2019-03-16T21:23:52Z")
Sounds like what you’re getting is just ordinary spam run through some sort of software that replaces letters with similar looking but rare characters from the unicode set. The idea is that your spam filter will recognize and filter out “penis enlarger” but won’t recognize something like “þêñï§ êñlårgêr”. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2019, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this-odd-email-sender-using/831230/6 "2019-03-17T00:20:22Z")
> [@naita](#): > > Sounds like what you’re getting is just ordinary spam run through some sort of software that replaces letters with similar looking but rare characters from the unicode set. The idea is that your spam filter will recognize and filter out “penis enlarger” but won’t recognize something like “þêñï§ êñlårgêr”. yeah myahoo mail spam folder is full of stuff like that ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2019, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this-odd-email-sender-using/831230/7 "2019-03-17T03:16:17Z")
> [@naita](#): > > Sounds like what you’re getting is just ordinary spam run through some sort of software that replaces letters with similar looking but rare characters from the unicode set. It is almost certainly this, but if you want to absolutely verify that it is not text, copy-paste it into [https://translate.google.com/](https://translate.google.com/) with “Detect Language” selected and see if it comes up with something. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2019, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this-odd-email-sender-using/831230/8 "2019-03-17T14:17:54Z")
> [@dstarfire](#): > > ``` > here's an e on a display stand: ȩ > > ``` That’s a Polish nasalized e sound. In Polish, it’s called an e with a “tail” (_ogonek_). There is also an “a” version with a tail. What’s particularly annoying is that Apple products, at least, when you hold down a key, it gives you versions of that letter with diacrytics or other variants. If I hold down “e”, the last option I get is “ę” with the ogonek. But if I hold down the “a”, there is no option for an “a” with the tail. As far as I know, Polish, Lithuanian, and (looks it up) Dalecarlian are the only language that use ę, but _they all use the “a” with the tail as well!_. Why would you include the “ę” in your letter variants but not the – hold on, let me find a place to cut and paste it from – “ą”. It’s bloody annoying, especially as recently it was pączki day, and I wanted to spell it correctly, but had to go hunting on my phone to cut-and-paste it from another web page. (It’s not that big a deal due to context, but _paczki_ and _pączki_ are two different words in Polish. The former means “packages.” The latter means a type of (usually) jelly-filled donut, though it does not have to be jelly-filled. In my case, I was writing a post that actually did need the ą.) ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this-odd-email-sender-using/831230/9 "2019-03-18T17:10:29Z")
On **leahcim** ’s advice, I ran ÿþ2 through Google translate, and it said Vietnamese detected. That may or may not give me the sender’s location. The actual addresses are a variety of sorta-English words followed by .us . Thanks for your advice and info, everybody. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this-odd-email-sender-using/831230/10 "2019-03-18T17:14:18Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > On **leahcim** ’s advice, I ran ÿþ2 through Google translate, and it said Vietnamese detected. I wouldn’t put _too_ much credence in that, unless it provides an actual translation based on that detection.