From: Jim Allan (jallanite@rogers.com)
Date: Sat Sep 27 2008 - 12:53:00 CDT
Julian Bradfield wrote:
> Can anybody shed light for me on why Unicode includes
> LATIN SMALL LETTER GAMMA
> in the IPA Extensions block, but does not include special IPA versions
> of chi, phi, theta, which are no less typographically distinct from
> their Greek counterparts?
The IPA phi symbol exists as U+0278.
The Greek symbols chi and theta are very much less typographically
distinct from their Greek counterparts. Indeed, in most fonts I am
familiar with which contain phonetic characters and Greek characters,
they fit exactly in style. True, in some fonts the lowercase Greek
letters are in italic style. So one should not normally use such a font
when using the Greek characters as phonetic characters.
The normal letter discussed in respect to standard differences between
IPA and Greek typography is beta, because the standard Greek beta lacks
a serif while the phonetic symbol is supposed to have one, except
possibly in a sans-serif font. Apparently this difference actually
bothers hardly anyone, including yourself it would seem.
As to gamma, the v with a loop on its bottom used for phonetic use seems
to be to be very different from the normal Greek gamma.
Jim Allan
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