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Subject: |
Is U+0140 (l with middle dot) ever used? |
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Date: |
Tue, 06 Aug 2002 16:27:27 -0700 |
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From: |
Eric Muller <emuller@xxxxxxxxx> |
U+0140 LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH MIDDLE DOT is intended to be used in=20
Catalan ('=C5=80l' is pronounced as two separate 'l' while 'll' is pronounc=
ed=20
as in 'million'). However, it seems that neither Yahoo nor Google use=20
that character in their own pages; similarly for an online newspaper=20
(http://www.vilaweb.com), but I don't know how "serious" they are.
Instead, everybody seems to use U+006C U+00B7 U+006C. Is that the=20
preferred encoding for Catalan?
Is U+0140 used in other languages?
Thanks,
Eric.
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Subject: |
Re: Is U+0140 (l with middle dot) ever used? |
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Date: |
Tue, 06 Aug 2002 16:53:42 -0700 (PDT) |
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From: |
Kenneth Whistler <kenw@xxxxxxxxxx> |
Eric,
> U+0140 LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH MIDDLE DOT is intended to be used in
> Catalan ('Å?l' is pronounced as two separate 'l' while 'll' is pronounced
> as in 'million'). However, it seems that neither Yahoo nor Google use
> that character in their own pages; similarly for an online newspaper
> (http://www.vilaweb.com), but I don't know how "serious" they are.
>
> Instead, everybody seems to use U+006C U+00B7 U+006C. Is that the
> preferred encoding for Catalan?
I would think so. There is no particular reason to use the
l· as a single character, when all the 8859-based and Windows 1252
implementations would be using U+00B7 for the middle dot.
Consider U+0140 as effectively a compatibility character for
ISO 6937. It is mapped to 0xF7 in that standard. It is also
mapped to 0xA9A8 in Code Page 949 (Korean) -- which probably got
it from ISO 6937 in the first place.
>
> Is U+0140 used in other languages?
Not that I know of.
--Ken
>
> Thanks,
> Eric.
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Subject: |
Re: Is U+0140 (l with middle dot) ever used? |
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Date: |
Fri, 09 Aug 2002 23:44:40 +0100 |
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From: |
Anto'nio Martins-Tuva'lkin <antonio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> |
I asked my catalonian contacs about this issue; something like
_____________________________________________________________________
IMO, in catalan [L][=B7][L] is prefered to [L=B7][L] because L-dot is not
really a separate letter, like spanish "=F1", 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=B7lel" looks like
P A R A L =B7 L E L
and not
P A R A L=B7 L E L
_____________________________________________________________________
I just recieved an answer about this issue. Translated bellow:
_____________________________________________________________________
> From: H=E8ctor Al=F3s i Font <halos@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> 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 Maj=F3), 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 (Maj=F3 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 Peri=F3dico (=20
> http://www.elperiodico.com/EDICION/portada.htm?l=3DCAT ). Persone mi=20
> konsideras tion suficxe malbela - kvankam estas vere, ke tio apenaux=20
> 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 Peri=F3dico (
http://www.elperiodico.com/EDICION/portada.htm?l=3DCAT ). 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=
=20
> 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=B7hof), sed mi tre
> dubas, ke tio estas norma uzo - simple kataluna influo. Eble=20
> portugallingvanoj povus imiti :)
I noted the use of middle dot also in occitan (Zamen=B7hof) [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=B7l - 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=B7L", though it doubles a number of other
consonants.
_____________________________________________________________________
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?
-- ____.
Ant=F3nio MARTINS-Tuv=E1lkin, | =
()|
<antonio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> |####|
R. Laureano de Oliveira, 64 r/c esq. |
PT-1885-050 MOSCAVIDE (LRS) N=E3o me invejo de quem tem |
+351 917 511 549 carros, parelhas e montes |
http://www.tuvalkin.web.pt/bandeira/ s=F3 me invejo de quem bebe |
http://pagina.de/bandeiras/ a =E1gua em todas as fontes |
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Subject: |
Re: Is U+0140 (l with middle dot) ever used? |
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Date: |
Wed, 14 Aug 2002 00:23:47 +0100 |
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From: |
Anto'nio Martins-Tuva'lkin <antonio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> |
I made a mistake:
> 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=B7L", though it doubles a number
> of other consonants.
This should be the barcelonian [non-normative] pronunciation, i.e.,
trivial-level catalan as spoken in Barcelona streets, not formal-level
catalan as used by mostely Barcelona-based entities, like Regional
Government, Universities or radio and television.
As for the nature of the middle dot, short of a specific code point
attributed to LATIN LETTER CATALAN MIDDLE DOT, there should be something
ensuring that this character can be treaded as a letter for all things
refering to word delimitation (smart select, line break, word count,
etc.).
I imagine that with 9 million native speakers catalan may appear as a
weak lobby to push to such a change in the standard, but note that while
other uses of (non-letter) middle dot are marginal and scarcely content-
bearing, catalan middle dot is central and essencial to quality textual
content representation and encoding -- which AFAIK Unicode is all about.
(In the two paragraphs above I used "letter" in a typographical meaning,
not as a linguist would, of course.)
-- ____.
Ant=F3nio MARTINS-Tuv=E1lkin | =
()|
<antonio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> |####|
R. Laureano de Oliveira, 64 r/c esq. |
PT-1885-050 MOSCAVIDE (LRS) N=E3o me invejo de quem tem |
+351 917 511 549 carros, parelhas e montes |
http://www.tuvalkin.web.pt/bandeira/ s=F3 me invejo de quem bebe |
http://pagina.de/bandeiras/ a =E1gua em todas as fontes |
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