Comparing string uniforming special characters in python [duplicate]

The standard approach to get rid of special chars seems to be discussed in this question. But maybe you could consider another approach often called fuzzy matching (or fuzzy search).

[...] technique of finding strings that match a pattern approximately (rather than exactly)

In Python you can use TheFuzz to do that. Here is a try based on your examples.

from thefuzz import fuzz

tuples = [("mañana", "manana"), ("shouldn't", "shouldnt"), ("even-distribuited", "even distribuited")]

for tuple in tuples:
  print(f"{tuple[0]} vs {tuple[1]}: {fuzz.ratio(tuple[0], tuple[1])}")

# mañana vs manana: 83
# shouldn't vs shouldnt: 94
# even-distribuited vs even distribuited: 94

So you could define a rule based on the ratio to conclude that there is a match between two strings.

You could even combine unicode normalization and fuzzy matching for better results.

tuples = [("mañana", "manana"), ("shouldn't", "shouldnt"), ("even-distribuited", "even distribuited")]

def compare(tuples, unicode=True):
  for t in tuples:
    if unicode:
      t = tuple(map(lambda x: unicodedata.normalize(u'NFKD', x).encode('ascii', 'ignore').decode('utf8'), t))
    print(f"{t[0]} vs {t[1]}: {fuzz.ratio(t[0], t[1])}")

compare(tuples)

# manana vs manana: 100
# shouldn't vs shouldnt: 94
# even-distribuited vs even distribuited: 94