rja@edison.GE.COM (rja) (04/17/88)
From: rja@edison.GE.COM (rja)
There have been a flurry of postings (primarily in comp.std.unix)
about ISO 8859/1 (8 bit character set for western European languages).
A recent posting has inquired about what the Eth and Thorn characters
look like.
Eth is similar in appearance to the letter D. However, eth has an additional
horizontal line about halfway vertically up on the left-hand vertical stroke.
This horizontal line extends to the left of where a D would stop and goes
halfway between the curved and vertical strokes of the D. The horizontal
stroke is symmetric with respect to the vertical left-hand line of a D.
Lowercase eth follows the same pattern with respect to the d, except that
the horixontal line is about 3/4 up the vertical line of a "d". The line
should be halfway between the top of the vertical line and the place where
the round part of the "d" meets the straight part (upper connection).
Thorn upper and lower case follows this same pattern except that replace all
instances of "d" and "D" above with "p" and "P". The lowercase thorn has
its horizontal line on the stem as part of the descender and the upper case
thorn has its horizontal line on the stem rather than between the intersections
of the straight and vertical lines forming the top of the "P".
While these characters are originally Icelandic/Norse, the Eth characters are
also used in Vietnamese (Quoc Ngu). Vietnamese is normally written using a
Roman-style script that has an amasing number of diacritical marks, so it isn't
quite handled by ISO 8859/1. ISO 8859/1 does come close though....
I haven't any reasonable way to generate a bit-map or Postscript image, but
these descriptions should get the general idea across to the folks at Prime,
DEC, etc. so they can implement them.
I'd be interested in getting mail from anyone who knows if a standard character
set exists for Vietnamese.
______________________________________________________________________________
rja@edison.GE.COM or ...uunet!virginia!edison!rja
"Noalias must go, this is non-negotiable." DMR
______________________________________________________________________________
Volume-Number: Volume 13, Number 56std-unix@longway.TIC.COM (Moderator, John S. Quarterman) (04/20/88)
From: uunet!mcvax!rhi.hi.is!magnus (Magnus Gislason) In article <170@longway.TIC.COM> > From: rja@edison.GE.COM (rja) > > A recent posting has inquired about what the Eth and Thorn characters > look like. > > [...long description of the Eth and Thorn characters...] > Unfortunately 'rja' doesn't seem to be very familiar with Icelandic or these special Icelandic characters. The only character he (she?) described correctly (at least as I could understand it) was uppercase Eth. This is what they approximately look like in Icelandic: ETH eth THORN thorn ---- \ / | | | \ \ | | | \ / \ |--- | --- | _ \ | > |--- | / / \| |--- | \ | / | | | | / ---- \_/ | |--- | | | For those who don't know which sounds these characters represent, they both sound like 'th' in English. 'Eth' as in 'this' and 'thorn' as in 'think'. Magnus Gislason University of Iceland, Internet: magnus@rhi.hi.is Computing Center (RHI) Uucp: ...!mcvax!hafro!rhi!magnus Volume-Number: Volume 14, Number 9
std-unix@longway.TIC.COM (Moderator, John S. Quarterman) (04/26/88)
From: peter@usenix.org (Peter Salus) In article <180@longway.TIC.COM>: > From: uunet!mcvax!rhi.hi.is!magnus (Magnus Gislason) > > Magnus Gislason > University of Iceland, Internet: magnus@rhi.hi.is > Computing Center (RHI) Uucp: ...!mcvax!hafro!rhi!magnus Despite the statement that edh (which I prefer to eth) and thorn are special Icelandic characters, it is worth noting that they occur in Old English as well. For anyone involved in Germanic studies or phonetics they are important. I claim right to input as one who spent a delightful year at the University of Iceland a quarter century ago. Peter H. Salus Executive Director USENIX Association Volume-Number: Volume 14, Number 11