|
|
| Home > Travel > nordic-faq > |
Nordic FAQ - 1 of 7 - INTRODUCTION |
Section 3 of 3 - Prev - Next
All sections - 1 - 2 - 3
.nordic. However, when using these to non-Nordics, one should be
careful to explain that these are digraphs, not two separate
characters. Also, some information may get lost by using digraphs,
since a filtering program will not be able to determine whether it is
really a digraph or two separate characters.
LaTeX notation comes from the typesetting program by the same name,
where a sequence starting with '\' may be substituted with a given
character. For instance, the a-ring is written as "\aa" or "{\aa}" in
LaTeX.
ISO-646 (really ISO-646-NO and ISO-646-SE) are 7-bit sets similar to
US-ASCII, but with national characters substituted in place of the
following characters: {, |, }, [, \, ]. This is the oldest one of the
"true representation" standards mentioned here; it was used in e.g.
the Nordic versions of the CP/M operating system, prior to MS-DOS.
Today, it is mostly used in Sweden and Finland (although the ordering
of the letters, for the sake of compability with the Danish /Norwegian
/German equivalents, are not correct in these languages).
ISO-8859-1, also called ISO Latin-1, is the first of several 8-bit
character sets described in International Standards Organization's
document 8859. (ISO is the maintainer of the meter, the kilogram,
etcetera.) This sets include all characters needed for all West
European languages, leave Sámi and Esperanto. Latin-1 is a superset of
US-ASCII, hence all ASCII characters maintain their original position
in this set. Rather than trying to accomodate positioning in any
spesific language, the letters in ISO-8859-1 are ordered according to
the alphabetical position of their US-ASCII lookalikes. Latin-1 is
supported through modern standardizations like MIME (RFC 1521).
The IBM codepages 437, 850, 861 and 865 are used on Personal Computers
in "text" mode, and is also the default set on many MS-Windows ®
communication programs. Out of the Big Blue, they were created to
provide text-based PC programs with a means to create low-cost
graphics, and the addition of extra characters came as a nice side
effect. (Certain Nordic characters were not represented in the
original codepage 437, with the consequence that in Iceland, Denmark
and Norway, computers would occasionally be sold with cp 861 or 865 in
the hardware. Today, alternative codepages can be downloaded to the
video card via software). The Danish /Norwegian character o-slash is
not represented in cp 437, and in 850 /861 /865 it is positioned with
the dangerous code 155 (9B hex) -- "Upper Escape". Certain terminal
types will interpret this code as the initial character of a escape
command, and may e.g. clear the screen depending on the next letter.
Further, it is incompatible with the established 8-bit standard
Latin-1, and should be avoided.
The various notations of the Nordic graphemes follow:
Letter Digraph LaTeX ISO-646 ISO-8859-1
HTML Octal Char
_________________________________ _____________________________________
a acute A' \'{A} - alt-0193 Á Á \301 Á
a' \'{a} - alt-0225 á á \341 á
eth TH - alt-0208 Ð Ð \320 Ð
th - alt-0240 ð ð \360 ð
e acute E' \'{E} - alt-0201 É É \311 É
e' \'{e} - alt-0233 é é \351 é
i acute I' \'{I} - alt-0205 Í Í \315 Í
i' \'{i} - alt-0237 í í \355 í
o acute O' \'{O} - alt-0211 Ó Ó \323 Ó
o' \'{o} - alt-0243 ó ó \363 ó
u acute U' \'{U} - alt-0218 Ú Ú \332 Ú
u' \'{u} - alt-0250 ú ú \372 ú
y acute Y' \'{Y} - alt-0221 Ý Ý \335 Ý
y' \'{y} - alt-0253 ý ý \375 ý
thorn TH - alt-0222 Þ Þ ; \336 Þ
th - alt-0254 þ þ \376 þ
u diaeresis U" \"{U} ^ alt-0220 Ü Ü \334 Ü
u" \"{u} ~ alt-0252 ü ü \374 ü
ae AE {\AE} [ alt-0198 Æ Æ \306 Æ
ae {\ae} { alt-0230 æ æ \346 æ
o-slash OE {\OE} \ alt-0216 Ø Ø \330 Ø
oe {\oe} | alt-0248 ø ø \370 ø
a-ring AA {\AA} ] alt-0197 Å Å \305 Å
aa {\aa} } alt-0229 å å \345 å
a diaeresis A" \"{A} [ alt-0196 Ä Ä \304 Ä
a" \"{a} { alt-0228 ä ä \344 ä
o diaeresis O" \"{O} \ alt-0214 Ö Ö \326 Ö
o" \"{o} | alt-0246 ö ö \366 ö
The ISO-646 charsets for Denmark/Norway and Finland/Sweden are in
practice obsolete, and there never existed one for Icelandic, but you
may run into older 7-bits text files using them. It is to be noted
that Ü is not represented in iso-646-NO for Denmark/Norway.
1.8.2 Pros and cons of the different representations
If you have been a reader of this group for a while, you may have
noticed that discussion about characters and their representations
occasionally accounts for quite a bit of bandwidth. It often does not
take more than a question about the issue from a new reader, or
someone posting an article with an IBM character set, to get a new
thread going on the issue. Some want to keep 7-bit ISO-646 (be aware
that they may call it "true ASCII", although strictly speaking, is
not), since 7-bit codes will always get though with any setup; others
want ISO-Latin-1 since it is more universal; and yet others promote
digraphs as the greatest common denominator between the two.
Some pros and cons for each set:
Character set: Advantages: Disadvantages:
__________________________________________________________________
Digraphs * Requires 7-bit only * Ambiguous
("oe" or "o-slash"?)
* Non-optimal compromise
LaTeX * Non-ambiguous 7-bit * Made for typesetting;
representation. somewhat cryptic for
regular text.
* Non-optimal compromise
ISO-646-SE, * Only 7-bit "true" * Different standards
ISO-646-DK representation. for each language
<[\]{|}> * No data loss even * Getting harder to
with old hardware/ find font support
software/setup. (Dying out).
* Shadows the brace,
sqare bracket, pipe,
and backslash chars.
ISO Latin 1 * Utilizes all 8 bits * Requires 8-bit clean
(ISO-8859-1) in a byte; yet avoids connection; older
<ÐÞÆØÅÄÖðþæøåäö..> dangerous codes. systems may cause
* Universal for all data loss.
Western European * May require some
languages. setup.
* Supported by ISO and * In case of stripping,
MIME; true subset of becomes "FXEDVfxedv";
Unicode. difficult to read.
IBM CodePages * Uses all 256 codes; * Uses all 256 codes;
Machintosh set more characters incl. dangerous ones.
* Often used in PC * Incompatible with
environments such as the "de-facto" 8-bit
BBS'es. standard ISO-8859-1
__________________________________________________________________
1.8.3 How do I set up support for 7-bit ISO-646 representation?
({|}, [\])
The ISO-646 sets are still supported via varoius fonts and translation
filters. Possible measures to set up support for them are:
* For the "terminal" program shipped with Windows 3.x, simply select
"Denmark/Norway", "Sweden" or "Finland" from the Translations item
in the "Terminal Preferences" dialogue box.
* For MS-Kermit, use the command "set term charcter-set language",
where "language" is one of "Finnish", "Swedish", or "Norwegian".
* For other DOS and Windows communication programs, visit its local
translation tables and insert appropriate translations for '[',
'\', ']', '{', '|', '}'.
* For Unix based news readers, either find a ISO-646 font, or pipe
your newsreader through one of the following commands (Provided
the font you use is ISO-8859-1):
Denmark/Norway: tr '\\]{|}' '\330\305\346\370\345'
Sweden/Finland: tr '\\]{|}' '\326\305\344\366\345'
For instance, in your .cshrc file, insert the following line:
alias rn "rn | tr '\\]{|}' '\330\305\346\370\345'"
The character '[' should not be translated, because it is used in ANSI
escape sequences.
Note that if you use this kind of translation, you will no longer see
any of the characters '\]{|}'; in most cases this outweighs the
benefits from seeing the national letters.
1.8.4 How do I set up support for 8-bit ISO-8859-1 representation? (æøåäö,
ÆØÅÄÖ)
The ISO-8859-1 (Latin 1) set is currently the most common character
representation standard on soc.culture.nordic, and is also quite
frequent in e.g. soc.culture.german, personal e-mail etc. However, on
many systems, the ability to view these characters is not provided as
"default", so you may need to configure some things on your own.
* If you are reading news through a modem, you need to make sure
that your modem connection is 8 data bits. (The most common
parameters are "8N1" - 8 data bits, no parity bits, and one stop
bit).
* For DOS text mode communication programs, you need a ISO->IBM
translation table. Tables for Telemate, Telix and Procomm Plus can
be found in the file "xlate.zip", available at various FTP sites.
* For MS Windows ® communication programs, select an ANSI or
ISO-Latin-1 font. For MS-Kermit, use "set term char latin". For
Procomm Plus for Windows, select vt220 or vt320 emulation. Be sure
that bit 8 is not stripped.
* For MS Windows ® you can also generate 8-bit characters globally
by choosing "US-International" keyboard layout via the
"International" dialogue box in the Control Panel. For instance,
'ä' (a diaeresis) is generated by pressing "a, i.e. double quote
followed by lowercase a.
A note to Windows programmers: Let the underlying keyboard
drivers, run-time libararies etc. take care of keyboard input.
Only be sure that the 8th bit is not stripped/masked away.
* If your newsreader is UNIX-based, insert the following command in
your .login or .profile file:
stty -istrip pass8
* If your modem connection is 7 bits (and cannot be changed to 8
bits), you can have ISO-Latin-1 characters translated to "[\]{|}"
before they are sent over the modem. Pipe your reader through the
"tr" command, similar to above:
tr '\306\330\305\304\326\346\370\345\344\366'
'[\\][\\{|}{|'
* If you use the "emacs" editor, version 19.x, and have a
ISO-Latin-1 display font, insert the following line in your .emacs
file:
(standard-display-european t)
Also, if you have a keyboard with international characters that
you want to be able to use directly, or if you in another way are
able to generate 8-bit codes directly from your keyboard, insert
the following line:
(set-input-mode (car (current-input-mode))
(nth 1 (current-input-mode))
0)
Note that in cases where the Meta key is represented by setting the
8th (high) bit, (ie. if you are not using X-windows), this line
will disable the Meta key, so you will subsequently have to use
"ESC x" to generate "M-x".
Otherwise, insert the following line:
(load-library "iso-insert")
A new keymap, 8859-1, has now been assigned to the key sequence
"C-x 8". You can assign this to another sequence, e.g. C-t, by
inserting:
(global-set-key "\C-t" 8859-1-map)
Some strokes from this map:
C-x 8 d gives ð (eth)
C-x 8 t gives þ (thorn)
C-x 8 a e gives æ (ae)
C-x 8 / o gives ø (o-slash)
C-x 8 a a gives å (a-ring)
C-x 8 " a gives ä (a diaeresis)
C-x 8 " o gives ö (o diaeresis)
C-x 8 ' a gives á (a acute)
C-x 8 ' i gives í (i acute)
1.8.5 References
For an index to other literature on internationalization, try:
I am: Tor Slettnes.
[ the sections above are available at the www-page
http://www.lysator.liu.se/nordic/scn/faq18.html ]
------------------------------
Subject: 1.9 About measures and figures
1.9.1 Why is it advisable to use the metric system in s.c.n?
Because you'll get flamed if you don't, that's why. :-> The obscure
Anglo-Saxon units of measurement are a pet peeve of certain s.c.n
regulars, known as net.metric-cops, who are very much committed to the
cause of converting Yanks to the SI units. But it's really just a
question of common courtesy. This is Nordic territory; we might be
speaking English most of the time, but there's a limit to the extent
we're willing to accommodate the American netters. :-) And seriously,
many Nordics simply won't have an idea of what you're talking about if
you use feet, yards, fahrenheits, inches, gallons, pounds or miles. If
you don't know how to convert these to the metric system, it's about
time to wake up to the 20th century and learn. Here are the tables:
Linear measure
--------------
Primitive system Metric system
**************** *************
1 inch = 2.54 centimeters (cm) 1 cm = 0.3937 inch
1 foot = 30.48 centimeters 1 m = 39.37 inches, or
1 yard = 0.9144 meter (m) 3.2808 feet, or
1 mile = 1.6093 kilometers (km) 1.0936 yards.
1 km = 3280.8 feet, or
1093.6 yards, or
0.62137 miles.
Liquid measure
--------------
1 U.S fluid ounce = 29.573 milliliters (ml) 1 ml = 0.033814 fl.oz.
1 U.S quart = 9.4635 deciliters (dl), or 1 dl = 3.3814 fl.oz.
0.94635 liters (l) 1 l = 33.814 fl oz., or
1 U.S gallon = 3.7854 liters 1.0567 quarts, or
1 U.S pint = 0.4732 liters 0.26417 gallons
1 U.S pint = 0.4732 liters 1 l = 2.1134 U.S pints
Area
----
1 sq foot = 0.0929 sq meters (m²) 1 m² = 10.764 sq feet
1 sq yard = 0.83613 sq meters (m²) 1 m² = 1.1960 sq yards
1 acre = 0.4046 hectare (ha) 1 ha = 2.471 acres
1 sq mile = 2.5900 sq kilometers (km²) 1 km² = 0.38610 sq miles
Mass
----
1 ounce = 28.350 grams (g) 1 g = 0.03527 ounces
1 pound = 0.45359 kilograms (kg) 1 kg = 2.2046 pounds
1 short ton = 0.90718 metric ton 1 metric ton = 0.98421 long tons, or
1 long ton = 1.0160 metric tons 1.1023 short tons, or
1,000 kg
Temperature
-----------
The Celsius ("centigrade") scale, named after the Swedish astronomer
Anders Celsius (1701-44), is based on the freezing and boiling points
of water -- 0°C and 100°C, respectively. The Fahrenheit scale, on the
other hand, is based on what Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit (1686-1736)
considered to be the temperature of the human body (100°F; in reality
it should be around 98.6°F) and the lowest temperature he could
achieve (0°F) by mixing salt, water and ice. Converting between the
two can be done by the following formulas:
°C = (°F-32)/1.8
°F = 32+(1.8*°C)
Or, for practical purposes, a bit simplified formulas can be used:
To get Fahrenheit out of Celsius: double the Celsius, subtract 10%,
and add thirty-two.
To get Celsius out of Fahrenheit: subtract thirty-two, add 10%, and
divide by two.
Or if this is still too complicated, you could learn by heart parts of
the following tables:
Fahrenheit --> Celsius Celsius --> Fahrenheit
-40°F = -40°C
/ \
_________/ \_________
| |
v v
-10°F = -23°C -10°C = 14°F
0°F = -18°C 0°C = 32°F
10°F = -12°C 10°C = 50°F
20°F = -7°C 20°C = 68°F
30°F = -1°C 30°C = 86°F
40°F = 4°C 40°C = 104°F
50°F = 10°C 50°C = 122°F
60°F = 16°C 60°C = 140°F
70°F = 21°C 70°C = 158°F
80°F = 27°C 80°C = 176°F
90°F = 32°C 90°C = 194°F
100°F = 38°C 100°C = 212°F
In the scales, 1 degree C corresponds to 1.8 degrees F,
1 degree F corresponds to 0.56 degrees C.
You'd better learn all this now, because later on there might be a
quiz. :->
1.9.2 How long is a Nordic mile?
John Mortison writes:
I am reading a copy of my greataunt's memoirs of growing up in
Sweden before she emigrated to the US in 1890. In it she several
times makes reference to Swedish miles and comments that they were
longer than English miles.
Leif B. Kristensen answers:
John,
this unit of distance is still in use, both in Sweden and in
Norway, and in the other Nordic countries too, I think. A Nordic
mil equals 10 kilometers, or approx. 6 1/4 English mile. It's the
normal unit in which we reckon distance between towns and cities
here.
Hans Engmark fills in:
> Denmark is not quiet as big, so though we also belong to
> the Nordic countries, a mile is here only 7 km. :-)
Mesaurement in Denmark 1683-1998 and Norway 1683-1814 ????
Danish mile = 7.538 m
Danish metermile = myriameter= 10.000 m
Danish geograficmile = 7420 m
Danish nauticmile= 1842 m
Danish inch 26,17 mm
Danish feet 0,31385 m
1.9.3 A warning about decimal commas and delimiters
Although most writers in s.c.n. ought to know the English usage of
decimal points and commas in big figures, you must be observant. The
usage in Scandinavia, in Germany and in France is the opposite, and
mistakes are common.
Recently it has become usual to mark thousands and millions by a
single and a double apostrophe, like this: 1'200 for one thousand two
hundreds, or 5"600'000 for five millions six hundred thousands.
Sometimes you can also see an abbreviated form, 1'2 or 5"6, and you
have to be prepared that the foot and inch signs might have other
usages.
Finally, it's hopefully unnecessary to stress the difference between
the American billion (a French, German or Scandinavian milliard) and
the European billion (which is a million millions).
1.9.4 All XXXs are YYY, ain't that so?
Probably not. Never trust the net for drawing conclusions about groups
of people, especially whole nations. You'll always get it wrong. I
wouldn't want to preach, but some people need to be reminded. We're
not statistically representative of the population layers of our
countries, and most of us don't even attempt to represent anyone but
our own, eccentric selves. A few colourful kooks with no life outside
the net always outshine the silent, lurking masses. Don't fall into
thinking "Gosh, those XXXs sure are a mighty weird/fanatic/stupid
bunch of people." Treat us as individuals, and you'll have a better
chance of being treated as an individual yourself.
All this being said: welcome to soc.culture.nordic! We hope you enjoy
the group!
[ the sections above are available at the www-page
http://www.lysator.liu.se/nordic/scn/faq19.html ]
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- END OF PART 1 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
© Copyright 1994-98 by Antti Lahelma and Johan Olofsson.
You are free to quote this page as long as you mention the URL for the
original archive (as: ),
where the most recent version of this document can be found.
--
e-mail: jmo@lysator.liu.se
s-mail: Majeldsvägen 8a, 587 31 LINKÖPING, Sweden
www: http://www.lysator.liu.se/~jmo/
Section 3 of 3 - Prev - Next
All sections - 1 - 2 - 3
| Back to category nordic-faq - Use Smart Search |
| Home - Smart Search - About the project - Feedback |
© allanswers.org | Terms of use