I would not disagree with Peter or Daniel. They are right in my view. However, consider the following Unicode characters: 025A LATIN SMALL LETTER SCHWA WITH HOOK 025E LATIN SMALL LETTER CLOSED REVERSED OPEN E 0261 LATIN SMALL LETTER SCRIPT G 0264 LATIN SMALL LETTER RAMS HORN 0267 LATIN SMALL LETTER HENG WITH HOOK 027A LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED R WITH LONG LEG 027F LATIN SMALL LETTER REVERSED R WITH FISHHOOK 0285 LATIN SMALL LETTER SQUAT REVERSED ESH 0295 LATIN LETTER PHARYNGEAL VOICED FRICATIVE 02A2 LATIN LETTER REVERSED GLOTTAL STOP WITH STROKE FF21 FULLWIDTH LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A We are not speaking of a stricken Polish L, a double-accented Magyar O, or a euro sign. We are speaking of... well, to tell the truth I have no idea what these letters are. Have you? More to the point, should you and I learn to recognize such letters? Should we expect basic Latin terminal fonts to cover them? Is it reasonable to marginalize the á's and ü's of Latin-1 by lumping them with the "squat reversed esh"? Now, the "squat reversed esh" as such does not bother me. If you show me a picture of it and tell me what language it is for and what sound it makes, then I will know it. What is important to me is to preserve the simple Roman conception of the general-use alphabet in a reasonable way---not for communication in a particular language, but rather for clear, compact terminal representation and for general international use. Inherent in the concept are the relative fewness of the available characters and the predictable way they are arrayed across a page from left to right. In my view, a terminal which cannot correctly display the "á" is somewhat broken, and a user who does not recognize the "á" probably should learn. I would not say the same with respect to the "squat reversed esh". However, this is just my view. -- Thaddeus H. Black 508 Nellie's Cave Road Blacksburg, Virginia 24060, USA +1 540 961 0920, t@b-tk.org
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