Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2015 16:32:15 -0300
Hello. I was looking for info in Spanish about some rare punctuation
symbols and found one in some Spaniard XIX century books (vía Google books)
I haven't seen referenced anywhere. It was called "millar", which
translates somewhat like "thousand". It seems that it had at least four
glyph variants, yet the quality of the scans make it a bit difficult to
reproduce exactly.
[image: Imágenes integradas 1]
A sample from "Manual del cajista" by José María Palacios (1845). It says
(poorly translated):
The millar ([symbol]) o millaron as it is commonly called) is the
> abbreviation for the zeros, when one types amount of a thousand: so, with
> a single numeral and a sign of these it can be read thousands.
The description is not very clear, but I understand that the sign is an
abbreviation of the three zeros that comes in one thousand. so, instead of
writing 40.000, one can write 40[symbol].
In the text the sing is given the look of a turned C with a lighting bold
in it, but I can be wrong.
[image: Imágenes integradas 2]
Another sample from "Gramática castellana fundada sobre principios
filosóficos" by Francesc Pons i Argentó (1850), with a more
straight-forward description.
Among counters the same name is given to each of these signs [symbol1],
> [symbol2], [symbol3] to denote thousand. So 20[symbol1] is read twenty
> thousand, 30[symbol2], thirty thousand, 40[symbol3], forty thousand.
Now there's three glyphs variants. One is an stand-alone turned C. Other is
a turned C with two bars as an overlay. The other looks like two f's turned
180°, or two j's with an small bar.
Another sample from "Manual de la tipografia española, ó sea, El Arte de la
imprenta" by Antoni Serra i Oliveres (1852).
[image: Imágenes integradas 4]
In this one, the millar looks like an straight C with two overlay bars. The
other symbols mentioned look like familiar ones, (the "sueldos" (salaries)
one looks like an small s in superscript. I guess is just an abbreviation.
I'm a bit confused with the letters with diacritics, but don't seems
anything unknown).
Anyone has more insight about this?
