diff --git a/core/lib/Drupal/Component/Transliteration/PhpTransliteration.php b/core/lib/Drupal/Component/Transliteration/PhpTransliteration.php
index 642f350..d12347c 100644
--- a/core/lib/Drupal/Component/Transliteration/PhpTransliteration.php
+++ b/core/lib/Drupal/Component/Transliteration/PhpTransliteration.php
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@
  */
 
 namespace Drupal\Component\Transliteration;
+use Drupal\Core\Language\LanguageInterface;
 
 /**
  * Implements transliteration without using the PECL extensions.
@@ -78,19 +79,18 @@ public function __construct($data_directory = NULL) {
   /**
    * {@inheritdoc}
    */
-  public function replaceDiacritics($string, $langcode = 'en', $unknown_character = '?') {
+  public function removeDiacritics($string) {
     $result = '';
 
     foreach (preg_split('//u', $string, 0, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY) as $character) {
       $to_add = $character;
       $code = self::ordUTF8($character);
-      if ($code == -1) {
-        // @todo since we know all the characters, we shoudln't need this
-        $to_add = $unknown_character;
-      }
+
       // @todo make an exhaustive list of what ascii code numbers we want to replace
-      elseif ($code > 191 && $code < 384) {
-        $to_add = $this->replace($code, $langcode, $unknown_character);
+//      if ($code > 191 && $code < 384) {
+//      if (($code > 223 && $code < 231) || $code == 257) {
+      if (($code > 0x00df && $code < 0x00ef) || $code == 0x0101) {
+        $to_add = $this->replace($code, LanguageInterface::LANGCODE_NOT_SPECIFIED, NULL);
       }
 
       $result .= $to_add;
diff --git a/core/lib/Drupal/Component/Transliteration/TransliterationInterface.php b/core/lib/Drupal/Component/Transliteration/TransliterationInterface.php
index 25d24dc..2e36271 100644
--- a/core/lib/Drupal/Component/Transliteration/TransliterationInterface.php
+++ b/core/lib/Drupal/Component/Transliteration/TransliterationInterface.php
@@ -15,23 +15,20 @@
 interface TransliterationInterface {
 
   /**
-   * Replaces diacritics from the input string with their nearest US-ASCII
-   * equivalent.
+   * Removes diacritics (accents) from certain letters.
+   *
+   * This only applies to certain letters:
+   * - Accented Latin characters like a-with-acute-accent, in the UTF-8 character range of 0xE0 to 0xE6.
+   * - @todo
+   * - @todo
    *
    * @param string $string
    *   The string holding diacritics.
-   * @param string $langcode
-   *   (optional) The language code of the language the string is in. Defaults
-   *   to 'en' if not provided.
-   * @param string $unknown_character
-   *   (optional) The character to substitute for characters in $string without
-   *   transliterated equivalents. Defaults to '?'.
    *
    * @return string
-   *   $string with non-US-ASCII characters transliterated to US-ASCII
-   *   characters, and unknown characters replaced with $unknown_character.
+   *   $string with accented letters replaced by their unaccented equivalents.
    */
-  public function replaceDiacritics($string, $langcode = 'en', $unknown_character = '?');
+  public function removeDiacritics($string);
 
   /**
    * Transliterates text from Unicode to US-ASCII.
diff --git a/core/modules/search/search.module b/core/modules/search/search.module
index 50cb6cf..ac27c25 100644
--- a/core/modules/search/search.module
+++ b/core/modules/search/search.module
@@ -241,9 +241,6 @@ function search_simplify($text, $langcode = NULL) {
   // Lowercase
   $text = Unicode::strtolower($text);
 
-  // Replace diacitics.
-  $text = \Drupal::service('transliteration')->replaceDiacritics($text);
-
   // Call an external processor for word handling.
   search_invoke_preprocess($text, $langcode);
 
@@ -395,8 +392,8 @@ function search_index($type, $sid, $langcode, $text) {
   $text = str_replace(array('<', '>'), array(' <', '> '), $text);
   $text = strip_tags($text, '<' . implode('><', array_keys($tags)) . '>');
 
-  // Replace diacitics.
-  $text = \Drupal::service('transliteration')->replaceDiacritics($text);
+  // Remove diacitics.
+  $text = \Drupal::service('transliteration')->removeDiacritics($text);
 
   // Split HTML tags from plain text.
   $split = preg_split('/\s*<([^>]+?)>\s*/', $text, -1, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);
diff --git a/core/tests/Drupal/Tests/Component/Transliteration/PhpTransliterationTest.php b/core/tests/Drupal/Tests/Component/Transliteration/PhpTransliterationTest.php
index f1b3705..92e3a67 100644
--- a/core/tests/Drupal/Tests/Component/Transliteration/PhpTransliterationTest.php
+++ b/core/tests/Drupal/Tests/Component/Transliteration/PhpTransliterationTest.php
@@ -21,6 +21,34 @@
 class PhpTransliterationTest extends UnitTestCase {
 
   /**
+   * Tests the PhpTransliteration::removeDiacritics() function.
+   *
+   * @param string $original
+   *   The language code to test.
+   * @param string $expected
+   *  The expected return from PhpTransliteration::removeDiacritics().
+   *
+   * @dataProvider providerTestPhpTransliterationRemoveDiacritics
+   */
+  public function testRemoveDiacritics($original, $expected) {
+    $transliterator_class = new PhpTransliteration();
+    $this->assertEquals($expected, $transliterator_class->removeDiacritics($original));
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Provides data for self::testRemoveDiacritics().
+   *
+   * @return array
+   *   An array of arrays, each containing the parameters for
+   *   self::testRemoveDiacritics().
+   */
+  public function providerTestPhpTransliterationRemoveDiacritics() {
+    return array(
+      array('àáâäæãåā', 'aaaaaeaaa'),
+    );
+  }
+
+  /**
    * Tests the PhpTransliteration class.
    *
    * @param string $langcode
@@ -116,4 +144,6 @@ public function testTransliterationWithMaxLength() {
     $this->assertSame($trunc_output, $transliteration->transliterate($input, 'de', '?', 18), 'Truncating to 18 characters works');
   }
 
+
+
 }