Unicode Explained

CHAPTER 8

Character Usage

This chapter describes different character blocks and collections that are practically

important, especially in the Western world. The first section is of a more generic nature

and discusses the relationship of character standards, orthography, and typography.

All the Unicode blocks are briefly characterized to give an overview, but the emphasis

is on ASCII, different Latin supplements, General Punctuation, and mathematical and

technical symbols.

For information on ideographic characters and processing of East Asian

languages, see Ken Lunde’s CJKV Information Processing (O’Reilly).

Basics of Character Usage

The use of characters has many aspects, but here we are mainly interested in selecting

the most suitable character, when there is a choice between similar-looking characters.

The choice may affect the appearance of text, but also the processing of text.

Orthography Sets Rules for Writing

Orthography, or “correct writing,” sets rules for using characters. This is largely a mat-

ter of writing words correctly, according to rules that some authority has set, or ac-

cording to established habits and conventions. You might use dictionary and spell-

checkers for this. But there are also rules that relate to grammar rather than dictionaries.

For example, English orthography has rules for quotations, and different forms of Eng-

lish have somewhat different rules. In U.S. English, ...