Martin Kochanski wrote:
> Writing a simple introduction to Unicode for ordinary users
> ("why are you giving me all those features I never asked for?"),
> I was about to concede that code page 1252 [...]
First of all: Not all computers are running MS-Windows, but CP 1252
is a proprietary code for Windows only. I think, the first thing to
mention is: what Windows dubbs "ANSI" (in menus, and docs) is _not_
standardized by ANSI (nor by any other national/international standards
body), and is confined to the Windows realm (not normally available
on Mac, Unix, notably Linux, and probably more systems -- hey, not
even in MS-DOS).
The world at large rather uses ISO 8859-1 which lacks 27 characters
comprised by CP 1252. So the Windows user has to learn to avoid these
27 characters in texts intended to be read elsewhere (e. g. E-Mail),
cf. <http://www.systems.uni-konstanz.de/EMAIL/FAQ.php#HTTP-71>.
> [...] already covers the Western European languages.
ISO 8859-1 covers these languages only in inferior quality (typewriter-
style), as it lacks many characters needed for typographically pleasing
texts, such as the smart quotes (which I use in handwriting, but have not
available on a typewriter).
One of Unicode's features is the General Punctuation block.
> For the sake of completeness, are there any other living Western
> European languages that need Unicode?
ISO 8859-1 lacks the Euro currency symbol (U+20AC), needed all over
Europe (this currency is legal tender in 15 European countries:
cf. <http://www.euro.ecb.int/> plus the Republic of San Marino,
the Vatican City and the Principality of Monaco). I found it easier
to use UTF-8 than ISO 8859-15; cf.
<http://www.systems.uni-konstanz.de/EMAIL/FAQ.php#SMTP-72>.
The Sorbian language, one of Germany's official languages, is not
covered by ISO 8859-1; you would need ISO 8859-2 or, indeed,
Unicode.
ISO 8859-1 lacks the oe-ligature for French(!), and some characters
for Sami (IIRC), a minority language spoken in Finland. Cf.
<http://czyborra.com/charsets/iso8859.html#ISO-8859-15>.
Proper names of many people living in Western Europe are not covered
by ISO 8859-1. (E. g., the club for which I administrate the membership
has several members whose names are not covered by ISO 8859-1, so I
have to manually add the diacritical marks in every single letter ad-
dressed to one of those mebers; I really wish the program we are using
would use Unicode rather than ISO 8859-1.) Btw., German law entitles
every natural person to demand his/her name to be spelled correctly
(<http://www.datenschutzzentrum.de/material/recht/bdsg2001/bdsg2001.htm#Par20>)
-- and even if there is no legal title, courtesy demands to spell
people's names correctly. Cf. <http://www.i18nguy.com/unicode-example.html>.
Best wishes,
Otto Stolz
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