Re: HTML - i18n / NCR & charsets

You, Peter Flynn, wrote:
++ 
++    ISO8879 names for Windows CP 1252 80-9F (128-160) entities:
++ 
++    83 (131) --   ?   -- florin
++ 
++ What's a florin? I know it's the old UK name for what was two
++ shillings, but Bill obviously means something else here.

It's used as the Dutch currency symbol.

++ 
++    8B (139) --   ?   -- guilsinglleft
++                «
++ 
++    9B (155) --    ?   -- guilsinglright
++                »
++ 
++    9F (159) -- Ÿ -- Ydieresis
++ 
++ Y diaeresis is a non-existent character, according to the experts on
++ TYPO-L, who have just discussed this in depth. It was included in both
++ ISOlat1 (lc) and ISOlat2 (uc) as well as the IBM pc character sets in
++ the mistaken belief that it actually existed in some language. It was
++ in fact transcribed in error, either from an ij or something
++ similar by whoever was representing the character sets to Geneva at
++ the time, and no-one was prepared to bite the bullet and say "this
++ does not exist", for fear of being proved wrong, and thus attacked for
++ failing to cater for whatever language was supposed to require
++ it. Various claims have been made for its existence in Dutch, Turkish,
++ and other less populous languages, but none of these have been
++ demonstrated.

It's not a letter in Dutch, but a ligature for i and j. In fact, it is
so common that many people think ydieresis is a single letter, and in
phonebooks, "ij" is sorted between "y". Dutch typewrites have a key for
ydieresis (often with florin on the shift part). That is of course
in small letters. Capitalized, it is IJ, without dots.



Abigail

Received on Saturday, 30 November 1996 18:24:57 UTC