Newsgroups: comp.text
Path: utzoo!sq!lee
From: lee@sq.sq.com (Liam R. E. Quin)
Subject: Re: Polyglot List Issue (Really: Does Latin-1 cover Western Europe ?)
Message-ID: <1991Jan29.200653.23928@sq.sq.com>
Keywords: \oe, Latin-1, ISO 8859-1
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada
References: <7828@castle.ed.ac.uk> <1840@seti.inria.fr> <722@castor.linkoping.telesoft.se>
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 91 20:06:53 GMT
Lines: 24

ath@linkoping.telesoft.se (Anders Thulin) writes:
> Philippe.Deschamp@Nuri.INRIA.Fr writes:
>>   Latin-1 does not cover the french language [...].  It lacks
>>the "oe" ligatures (\oe and \OE of TeX).

>Considering that the OE ligature isn't used in *any* if the 8859/1-8
>tables, I can't help wondering if it really is an important character.

Well, it is used in English in imported words such as [oe]illade (an amorous
look or glance) and [oe]uvre (the works of an artist, painter, etc.).  In the
same way, [ae] is used in Encycolp[ae]dia, Medi[ae]val, [ae]gis, and in names
such as [Ae]lfwin, [Ae]lfric, etc.

Perhaps as these standards mature we'll see them becoming more widely useful.
Or maybe the various inaccessible glyphs will simply not be used, and will
fade away like a snark or a booju...   :-(


Lee

-- 
Liam R. E. Quin,  lee@sq.com, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, +1 (416) 963-8337
    ``No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer
      is obvious''				 -- George Bernard Shaw