Perhaps the main point to be taken from what Liwal was saying
is that it would be good to ensure that there is room reserved
in the BMP for future additions of currency symbols for
countries not represented by currency symbols currently in the
standard.
Peter
From: <Marco.Cimarosti@icl.com> AT Internet on 12/21/99 03:51
AM
Received on: 12/21/99
To: Peter Constable/IntlAdmin/WCT, <unicode@unicode.org> AT
Internet@Ccmail
cc: <unicode@unicode.org> AT Internet@Ccmail
Subject: Re: Where to Add new Currency Sign? -- Cultural
adaptability
N.R. Liwal wrote:
>But anyway I think it will be a wise planning if Unicode
assinge each >country a Currency Gylp, some might use it tody
or some in future.
There is no 1-to-1 mapping between countries and characters for
currency symbols, so it would be useless and insufficient to
allocate a code-point for each country.
Many countries share the same symbol. E.g.:
* "$" (the S in Latin "solidus") is used for Pesos
(Mexico), Dollars
(US, Canada, Australia, etc.), Escudos (Portugal);
* "" (the L in Latin "li(b)ra") is used for many
currencies called
"Pound", "Lira", "Sterling", etc. (UK, Ireland, Italy, Egypt,
Cyprus, etc.);
* "" (the Y in Chinese "yuan") is used for the Japanese
En and for
the Chinese Renminbi.
Many countries use symbols that do not require special
characters. E.g. Germany uses "DM", France uses "FF". You too
said that your fellow country(wo)men expect to see the whole
name "Afganis" spelled in Pashto, so why having a special
character?
Many countries use more than one symbol. E.g. in Italy we lack
standardizaton, and currently use "", "L", "L/", "L.", "Lit",
"ITL" "lire" (and now also "EUR", "EUR", "euro" and, for the
joy of purists, "euri").
Moreover, "countries" are just the expression of the current
political situation. Who can tell that, in the next 10 years,
countries like Afghanistan, Italy or the U.S.A. will still
exist? Some of them could split in 2 or more countries, or join
a federation with other countries... And even if countries
remain, the currency name can change!
You are right saying that the international 3-letter
abbreviation is not appropriate for many local cultures: "AFA"
is spelled in latinate letters, but Pasho uses a different
alphabet; "ITL" implies the English adjective-noun structure,
but Italian has a noun-adjective structure (in fact we prefer
"LIT").
I think that these standard abbreviations are OK, but they
should be used where they belong: in the banks' exchange
offices (where foreign languages are normally spoken, btw). The
price tags at the market or the amounts on a newspaper article
should be expressed in a more local fashion.
_ Marco
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