From: Lukas Pietsch (lukas.pietsch@pluto.uni-freiburg.de)
Date: Mon Feb 24 2003 - 13:57:13 EST
> For the "married" symbol use the mathematical "infinity" symbol:
> U+221E (no pun intended).
> Indeed, one could go a step further and introduce (?) a symbol for
divorced:
> Either one of the following offers itself as a candidate:
> U+29DC INCOMPLETE INFINITY
> U+29DE INFINITY NEGATED WITH VERTICAL BAR
Actually, the symbol and several others already exist and seem to be
standardized. The "Duden", the authoritative source on German
orthography, describes them in its section on typesetting practices,
under the heading of "genealogical symbols". Besides the asterisk
(born), the dagger/cross (died), and the two overlapping rings (married)
it lists:
wavy horizontal line (= baptized)
a single ring (= engaged)
two rings separated by a vertical bar (= U+29DE?) (= divorced)
two rings joined by a horizontal line (= extramarital)
two swords crossed (= died in combat)
rectangle (= buried)
urn symbol (= cremated)
The "married" symbol, by the way, typically differs from the infinity
symbol, as it consists of two overlapping circles, not just circles
touching each other. The "born" and "died" symbol, on the other hand,
are clearly identical with the normal typographical asterisk and dagger.
The Duden also makes it clear that these are all for use in inline text
("können in entsprechenden Texten zur Raumersparnis verwendet werden").
I haven't got a scanner here, else I might put up a scan somewhere. I
haven't found the time yet to look up if any more of these are already
in Unicode, but I don't remember having seen them.
Lukas
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Feb 24 2003 - 14:45:27 EST