[Biblical-languages] Apostrophe / Coronis
Dave Peterson
davep at iit.edu
Sun May 4 21:56:23 EDT 2003
At 6:31 PM +0200 5/4/03, Pere Casanellas wrote:
>I find it strange that 2019 be recommended as apostrophe. The main
>use of U-2019 is "right single quotation mark", and I suppose it is
>better to have one different character for every use. My old UNICODE
>manual (version 2.0), under character 0027 says: "Apostrophe [...]
>Preferred characer for apostrophe is 02BC [...] Preferred character
>for closing single quotation mark is 2019". Should not 02BC be used
>for apostrophe? Can anybody explain me in which cases 02BC (which is
>defined as "modifier letter apostrophe = apostrophe") should be used?
At 7:53 PM +0100 5/4/03, Peter Kirk wrote:
>As I understand it, 02BC should be used in languages in which the
>apostrophe is a letter of the alphabet, rather than a punctuation
>mark as in English and Greek.
I know of at least one composition system that handles apostrophes and
closing quotation marks differently; I think it's in the way they kern
next to other characters. Systems like that would have trouble if Unicode
decrees that apostrophe and closing single quote are the same *character*
as well as the same *glyph*.
Seems unnecessary in a character system that even considers the Ångstrom
symbol and the Swedish letter 'Å' to be different characters.
OTOH, 0027 is not the best, because it (and its matching doublequote) are
often used for special situations (such as when displaying computer programs)
where it is expected to be a vertical (so that it is symmetric) tic mark.
Probably someone should be advocating for an apostrophe character distinct
from the closing single quote character but nonetheless a punctuation
character. Bet it won't happen, however. ;-S
--
Dave Peterson
SGMLWorks!
davep at iit.edu
More information about the Biblical-languages
mailing list