From: David Starner (starner@okstate.edu)
Date: Wed Oct 23 2002 - 13:00:42 EDT
I have several questions about character identities.
First, is it compliant with Unicode for an Antiqua font to use an s
glyph for ſ (U+017F)? It makes switching between Antiqua and Fraktur
fonts possible, and it is arguably the glyph given to the middle s in
modern Antiqua fonts.
Likewise, ä is printed as a with e above in old texts.* Would it be
acceptable to make a font with a a^e glyph for ä? It's not even changing
the meaning of the character in any way.
(I suspect the answer is it's not technically complaint, but nobody
cares.)
(To my surprise, I came across a text from 1920 that used the e-above
instead of a diearsis. The only other texts I've see with this date
before 1810. It was "Islands Kultur zur Wikingerzeit" by Felix Niedner,
in the series (?) "Thule: Altnordische Dichtung und Prosa", which leads
me to believe, based off my limited German, that it's a deliberate
anacronism. Right?)
As a third case, I looked briefly at information and advocacy of the
duodecimal system. Chi and epsilon have been used as glyphs for 10 and
11, as well as an upside-down 2 and 3, a chi and reversed pound symbol
(? I'd need at that one again . . .) and * and #. Unified, they might a
proposal here, if someone still cares enough to make it. Would it be
unreasonable to unify them? There's quite a disparity in glyphs, but not
much argument against them all being the same character, and I don't
think there's anyone wanting to make the distinction.
-- David Starner - starner@okstate.edu Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom-- A field where a thousand corpses lie. -- Stephen Crane, "War is Kind"
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