From: suzanne mccarthy (suzmccarth@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Oct 18 2005 - 12:32:13 CST
In Oskar Lehmann I get the impression that the logographic 'kai' might be descended from an early kappa symbol or even the numeric koppa symbol. It is very common in medieval manuscripts. The kappa alpha-iota ligature kai is just that - a straghtforward shorthand using the transparent alpha-iota ending.
I have lost track of all the responses on this thread, but let me say quickly that I do not see this as a new codepoint. It is definitely related to an earlier form, most likely numeric koppa. In any case, there are tons and tons of Greek shorthand forms -
I thought that maybe these two were created as type in memory of two famous manuscript writers and then used for whatever reason here in a mixed way. But don't forget that one of the purposes of the Oratio Dominica was to display forms of type.
Suzanne
John Hudson <john@tiro.ca> wrote:
suzanne mccarthy wrote:
> I am just wondering what you meant by a codepoint for 'kai'.
> Does it have a special codepoint?
Yes. Kai is separately encoded as a character (U+03D7) because it is sometimes used even
in modern Greek in a manner similar to the Latin ampersand. [The Coptic equivalent is also
separately encoded, following the fairly recent disunification of the Greek and Coptic
scripts in Unicode.]
John Hudson
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