Re: Currency symbols

From: Asmus Freytag (asmusf@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Mon Jun 28 1999 - 19:16:15 EDT


At 05:42 AM 6/28/99 -0700, Torsten Mohrin wrote:
>
>I would like to discuss some currency symbols that are not explictly
>encoded in Unicode. Maybe most of these symbols are _not_ candidates
>for inclusion in Unicode. Any comments (or corrections)?

We left room in the block since we anticipated additional symbols, both
novel (like Euro) and traditional. We normally try not to decompose
currency symbols.

It would be really helpful if you could make a more formal proposal. You
have almost all the information below, but we would need copies of printed
samples (scanned, not hardcopy). These samples should document the glyphic
variations that you are aware of.

If you could create a PDF file or an HTML with GIFs and either post it and
send a pointer, or send me a copy, I can forward it to the committee.

>1) Quetzal
>Currency of Guatemala. ISO code is GTQ. Symbol is Q. _But_ I also
>found a slashed Q in a dictionary of abbrevations. Could be encoded as
>U+0051 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Q + U+0338 COMBINING LONG SOLIDUS OVERLAY.

Here we would need to know how common the slashed form is.

>2) Guarań
>Currency of Paraguay. ISO code is PYG. Symbol is a dashed G or slashed
>G. Could be encoded as U+0047 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G + U+0336
>COMBINING LONG STROKE OVERLAY or U+0047 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G +
>U+0338 COMBINING LONG SOLIDUS OVERLAY or maybe as U+01E4 LATIN CAPITAL
>LETTER G WITH STROKE.

This would be answered by looking at the glyph samples. If the slashed form
is common, it's probably best to code a new symbol, rather than unifying it
with
U+01E4.

>3) Austral
>Former currency of Argentina (-1991). ISO code was ARA. Symbol is a
>double dashed A. Cannot be encoded with a combination of existing
>Unicode characters.

Sounds like a candidate.

>4) Cedi
>Currency of Ghana. ISO code is GHC. Symbol is a slashed C. Could be
>encoded as U+0043 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C + U+0338 COMBINING LONG
>SOLIDUS OVERLAY or U+20A1 COLON SIGN. But the colon sign has a double
>slash. Glyph variants?

This depends. When we unified single/double slashed characters before,
we always found examples of *both* forms being used for *all* uses, even
if one of the forms was less frequently used for some uses.

This means we would need glyph evidence both for Cedi *and* Colon for this
one.

>5) Peso
>Currency of Philippines. ISO code is PHP. Symbol is a dashed P. Could
>be encoded as U+0050 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P + U+0338 COMBINING LONG
>SOLIDUS OVERLAY or U+20A7 PESETA SIGN. But the peseta sign has a
>double dash. Glyph variants?

The peseta sign that is coded in Unicode has a single bar. We are not aware
of a double slash variant. Perhaps, you could include evidence for this?

A./
>
>Torsten
>
>
>--
>Torsten Mohrin
>Sharmahd Computing GmbH, Hannover, Germany
>Phone: +49-511-13780, Fax: +49-511-13450
>http://www.sharmahd.com, mohrin@sharmahd.com
>
>



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