RE: Pound and Lira (was: Re: The Currency Symbol of China)

From: Marco Cimarosti (marco.cimarosti@essetre.it)
Date: Tue Oct 01 2002 - 11:21:07 EDT

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    Kenneth Whistler wrote:
    > [...] So it is possible that the lira sign
    > simply derives from a draft list that was standardized
    > without anyone ever spending time to debate the pound/lira
    > symbol unification first. [...]

    If it proves true that the lira sign was an unification fault, why not
    stating it officially in the next book?

    The current information is misleading:

            00A3 POUND SIGN
                    = pound sterling, Irish punt
                    x (lira sign - 20A4)

            20A4 LIRA SIGN
                    * Italy, Turkey
                    x (pound sign - 00A3)

    Why not substituting it with something more sensible, e.g.:

            00A3 POUND SIGN
                    = pound sterling, Irish punt, Italian lira, Turkish lira,
    etc.
                    x (lira sign - 20A4)

            20A4 LIRA SIGN
                    * Intended for lira, but not widely used.
                    * Preferred character for lira (Italy, Turkey, etc.) is
    00A3.
                    x (pound sign - 00A3)

    The Italian lira is not in circulation any more and, when it was, its symbol
    was with U+00A3, which is the character Italian keyboards have on the key of
    digit "3", in place of the US "#".

    I don't know what's the situation in Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt, and so on, but I
    would be very surprised to know that anyone ever used U+20A4.

    _ Marco

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