I asked my catalonian contacs about this issue; something like
_____________________________________________________________________
IMO, in catalan [L][·][L] is prefered to [L·][L] because L-dot is not
really a separate letter, like spanish "ñ", but a simply separator just
like an ordinary "-".
Actually, AFAIK, in catalan typography if one needs to compose with
exaggerated letter spacing, middle dot is dealt with as a separate
symbol, and thus "paral·lel" looks like
P A R A L · L E L
and not
P A R A L· L E L
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I just recieved an answer about this issue. Translated bellow:
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> From: Hèctor Alós i Font <halos@sofresam.com>
> Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2002 08:17:18 +0200
> Subject: Re: [esperpentu] Fwd: Is U+0140 (l with middle dot) ever
> used?
> Vi pravas: temas pri memstara signo, ne alglulajxo al antauxa lo.
> Nuntempe en la hispaniaj klavaroj (legxo Majó), temas pri memstara
> signo tajpita per Maj+3. Mi memoras tamen malnovajn tajpilojn kun
> aparta klavo "l+mezpunkto".
You're right: it's an standalone symbol, not an addition to the previous
"L". In current spanish keyboards (Majó law), it's a separated symbol
located at Shift+3. But I remember older typewriters with a separated
key "L + middle dot".
> Principe temas pri mezalta punkto, sed estas homoj uzantaj normalan
> punkton: ekzemple la kataluna eldono de El Periódico (
> http://www.elperiodico.com/EDICION/portada.htm?l=CAT ). Persone mi
> konsideras tion suficxe malbela - kvankam estas vere, ke tio apenaux
> konfuzas: tuj sekve, sen spaco, estas minuskla litero, malkiel okazas
> kun la "vera" punkto.
In principle it is a dot at mid line height, but some people uses normal
period dot: f.i. the catalan edition of the newspaper El Periódico (
http://www.elperiodico.com/EDICION/portada.htm?l=CAT ). Personnally I
find it rather ugly -- though it's true that this parctice is hardely
abiguous: right after the period, no space, there's a lower case letter
unlike what happends with a real period.
> Gxi estas uzata ankaux katalune kiel apartigilo ekz-e en kelkaj fakaj
> eldonoj de mezepokaj tekstoj: se mi bone komprenas, tiel oni indikas, ke
> en la originalo estis unu sola vorto, sed nuntempe oni skribus dise.
In catalan it is used also as a separator f.i. in scholastic editions of
medieaval texts: IIUC, it is thus noted that in the original something
is written as a single word, which nowadays we'd write separately.
> Mi rimarkis gxian uzon ankaux en la okcitana (Zamen·hof), sed mi tre
> dubas, ke tio estas norma uzo - simple kataluna influo. Eble
> portugallingvanoj povus imiti :)
I noted the use of middle dot also in occitan (Zamen·hof) [thus
distinguishing a foreign "nh", here polish, from the occitan digraph
"nh"], but I strongly doubt that this is normative -- it's probably just
some catalan influence. Maybe portuguese speakers could do the same :)
["nh" also occurs in portuguese].
> Kaj jes gxi estas efektive cxiutage uzata: amaseto da vortoj gxin
> enhavas, kvankam la barcelona (nenorma) prononco ne distingas inter l
> kaj l·l - sed jes duobligas suficxe multajn aliajn konsononantojn.
And, yes, L + middle dot + L is indeed used: in a smallish number of
catalan words, even if the barcelonian [normative] pronunciation doesn't
distinguish between "L" and "L·L", though it doubles a number of other
consonants.
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So, unless it is (or becomes) used in any other language, U+0140 seems
about to disappear from actual usage, with or without any official
deprecation.
As for the refered usage of normal period, it suffers from the known
problems of having an punctuation sign used a letter symbol (word
division, word count, alphasorting etc.).
Hm. But middle dot is not also a letter symbol. It's also used as a
bullet, a tab filling, even a box-drawing char. Shouldn't Unicode
provide a way to separate this duality?
-- ____.
António MARTINS-Tuválkin, | ()|
<antonio@tuvalkin.web.pt> |####|
R. Laureano de Oliveira, 64 r/c esq. |
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