Re: Glyphs for German quotation marks

From: Andreas Prilop (nhtcapri@rrzn-user.uni-hannover.de)
Date: Fri Jun 16 2006 - 11:57:46 CDT

  • Next message: Andreas Prilop: "Re: Glyphs for German quotation marks"

    On Thu, 15 Jun 2006, John Hudson wrote:

    > The point I have been making is that in the context of type
    > designs that use oblique monolinear quotations marks,
    > the direction of slant may be either to the left or right for U+2018.

    I disagree. The majority of type designers is not aware of the
    different quotation marks in Unicode. They think of alt+0145 and
    alt+0146 as the only high quotation marks.

    As I wrote earlier, your argumentation is perfectly valid in a
    restricted 8-bit character set such as cp1252, where there are
    only two high quotation marks. Your only choice is then to make
    0x91 = alt+0145 as a mirrored apostrophe.

    > U+2018 is identified as a *left* single quotation mark.

    Unicode has *no* generic left or right quotation marks.
    HTML has such generic tags, namely <Q> </Q>, which almost never
    work in most browsers.
    Unicode's quotation marks are based on shape rather than semantics:
    We have the low-9 quotation mark U+201A for use in German.
    And the right quotation mark in German is U+2018.

    > But what does left mean in the context of an oblique
    > monolinear quote, where the only possible distinguishing
    > characteristic between left and right quotes is slant direction?
    > Do you see the design ambiguity?

    No! Even in Futura and in Palatino Linotype, the glyphs of the
    66 and 99 quotes are different!
    http://store.adobe.com/type/browser/P/P_039.html
    http://store.adobe.com/type/browser/P/P_046.html

    > This is why \ is considered by type designers to be a
    > legitimate and useful glyph form for U+2018.

    Again I disagree!
    Most type designers don't know about U+2018 and U+201B.
    They just think in terms of traditional 8-bit character sets
    such as cp1252 and MacRoman. Here you have no choice indeed
    because you have only two high quotation marks.

    The situation is different in Unicode!

    > You are objecting saying that, even for oblique monoline
    > quotes, U+2018 and U+201B should never be identical, that the
    > former should be / and the latter should be \.

    I never said this!

    > But surely you see that saying these two characters should
    > not be identical means that U+2018 and U+2019 will be identical instead.

    I never said this!

    I try again:

    Make an apostrophe as you like it and put it into U+2019.
    Rotate the apostrophe and put it into U+2018.
    Mirror the apostrophe and put it into U+201B.
    Lower the apostrophe to the base line and put it into U+201A.

    I never said anything about the shape of an apostrophe.
    Whether any of the above glyphs look (or are) the same,
    depends on how *you* make your own apostrophe.



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