TIL about the greek question mark

Tell me, can you tell the difference between these two characters?

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  • nxfsi@lemmy.world
    113·
    1 year ago

    Why did Unicode even allow these symbols even exist? What happened to using a single encoding for similar symbols like in CJK? Uriel must be rolling furiously in his grave rn

    • SquidsEnglish
      42·
      1 year ago

      Because the point of unicode is to accurately depict every sort of writing regardless of format, not to make a neat table of every unique glyph. Fonts may want to render the two differently or treat them differently. Same reason why there’s a difference between an em dash and a quotation line mark

      Same reason why unicode is full of random characters that only ever appear like thrice in some Russian coptic manuscript from the 3rd century - it’s about being able to depict something, not perceived usefulness

      Also excuse my ignorance, but who’s Uriel? Because right now I just have the mental image of a very upset archangel which I’m guessing is not what you’re referring to. I mean it could be - I’m pretty sure unicode would fall under his domain of literature