I've reformatted Pim Blokland's question as a Unicode FAQ. Q: What do the terms "turned", "inverted", "reversed", "rotated", "inverse", "digraph", and "ligature" used in the names of Unicode characters mean?
A: These terms are basically typographical rather than Unicode-specific. A turned character is one that has been rotated 180 degrees around its center. A turned "e" winds up with the opening in the upper left portion. U+0259 LATIN SMALL LETTER SCHWA is a turned "e". An inverted character has been flipped along the horizontal axis. An inverted "e" winds up with the opening in the upper right portion. There is no Unicode character representing an inverted "e". A reversed character has been flipped along the vertical axis. A reversed "e" winds up with the opening in the lower right portion. U+0258 LATIN SMALL LETTER REVERSED E is an reversed "e". A rotated character has been rotated 90 degrees, but one can't tell which way without looking at the glyph. U+213A ROTATED CAPITAL Q is a "Q" that has been rotated counterclockwise. "Inverse" means that the white parts of the glyph are made black, and vice versa. An inverse "e" looks like a normal "e" but is white on a black background. There is no Unicode character representing an inverse "e". Digraphs and ligatures are both made by combining two glyphs. In a digraph, the glyphs remain separate but are placed close together. In a ligature, the glyphs are fused into a single glyph. -- A mosquito cried out in his pain, John Cowan "A chemist has poisoned my brain!" http://www.ccil.org/~cowan The cause of his sorrow http://www.reutershealth.com Was para-dichloro- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Diphenyltrichloroethane. (aka DDT)
