Yves Arrouye wrote:
> > About "£" (L with two bars = "Italian lira" or
> "Egypt/Cyprus pound") and
> > "£"
> > (L with one bar = "Pound Sterling" or "Irish punt"), I
> think that the
> > Unicode distinction is not valid because:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > For these reason, I suggest that font designers ignore the
> distinction
> > between U+00A3 (POUND SIGN) and U+20A4 (LIRA SIGN) and use
> the same glyph
> > for both. The glyphs should have one or two bars depending
> on the font
> > style and on the choice made for other currency symbols.
>
> Interesting comment. Isn't the Unicode distinction simply one
> of characters,
Sure. In fact, I did not discuss the existence of these two different
versions of "£" in Unicode. There may be lots of reason for Unicode to have
defined two duplicates for the same symbol; a frequently seen reason is
compatibility with existing standards.
What I say is that I see no reason to keep them visually distinguished in
fonts.
But I also dispute the correctness of the annotations on U+00A3 (POUND SIGN)
and U+20A4 (LIRA SIGN):
00A3 POUND SIGN
= pound sterling, Irish punt
x (lira sign - 20A4)
...
20A4 LIRA SIGN
* Italy, Turkey
x (pound sign - 00A3)
I'd find the entries more correct like this:
00A3 POUND SIGN
* Britain, Egypt, Ireland, Italy, etc.
x (number sign - 0023)
x (lira sign - 20A4)
x (l b bar symbol - 2114)
x (square pondo - 3340)
x (square rira - 3352)
x (fullwidth pound sign - FFE1)
...
20A4 LIRA SIGN
* Italy, Turkey, etc.
x (number sign - 0023)
x (pound sign - 00A3)
x (l b bar symbol - 2114)
x (square pondo - 3340)
x (square rira - 3352)
x (fullwidth pound sign - FFE1)
I know that this is probably impossible, but I'd also add a compatibility
mapping:
20A4 LIRA SIGN
...
# <compat> 00A3
> and the difference in glyphs shown in the standard simply a
> reflection of
> the preferences of the designer of the fonts used to print
> the character
> tables? I'd think so.
Yes, and no. I think that the choice of fonts for the charts reflects many
editorial needs. One of these criteria was clearly to choose fonts which
are quite "classic" and neutral (e.g. a roman type for Western scripts).
Another criterion was probably to deliberately show some little difference
between similar characters, in order to distinguish them in indexes (e.g., I
know that this was the reason for choosing a sans-serif font for the KangXi
radicals, as opposed to a more classical font for other Han characters).
But, in some cases, I think that the representative glyph on the charts is
intended as a precise (although not mandatory) indication to type designers.
In this sense, I found wrong that the U+00A3 (POUND SIGN) and U+20A4 (LIRA
SIGN): I'd suggest both glyphs for both characters, separated by a "|".
_ Marco
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