code: @GwtIncompatible("incompatible method")
      public static String stripAccents(final String input) {
          if(input == null) {
              return null;
          }
          final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("\\p{InCombiningDiacriticalMarks}+");//$NON-NLS-1$
          final StringBuilder decomposed = new StringBuilder(Normalizer.normalize(input, Normalizer.Form.NFD));
          convertRemainingAccentCharacters(decomposed);
          // Note that this doesn't correctly remove ligatures...
          return pattern.matcher(decomposed).replaceAll(StringUtils.EMPTY);
      }
docs: See also Lucene's ASCIIFoldingFilter (Lucene 2.9) that replaces accented characters by their unaccented equivalent (and uncommitted bug fix: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LUCENE-1343?focusedCommentId=12858907&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels%3Acomment-tabpanel#action_12858907).