unfamiliar language

[T.A.MCALLISTER]

> Date:          Thu, 9 Feb 1995 13:56:18 EST
> From:          Charles Sabatos <SABATOS at CMC.CZ>
> To:            Multiple recipients of list SEELANGS

> At the entrance to Auschwitz there is a wall with a short description
> of the atrocities there, written in about 10 languages (English,
> Polish, Russian, Hebrew, etc.)  The last one was a language written
> in Latin characters (including a few Polish-looking letters like the
> "L" with slash) but it didn't appear to be Slavic.  The flag drawn
> above it was (I believe) blue and yellow, and in the middle was a
> circle with spokes.  Would this be a Romany, or perhaps Baltic,
> language?  Just wondering.
>

I've just checked an ISO document listing the Latin characters used in
European languages, and only Polish and Sorbian are listed as having the
L-slash character.

Could the character in the wall-writing be a slightly flowery version of the
L-acute or L-hachek used in Slovak?

I gather (from some infuriatingly ambiguous passages in text-books) that
in Czech, Slovak and a couple of other languages, there is (or has been in
various periods) inconsistency in the writing/printing of some letters with
hacheks and acutes, with some of these accents appearing in the
alternative form of a small mark near the top right-hand corner of the
character, but not with absolute consistency.

Apparently printers with limited character-sets substitute(d) whatever
variety of apostrophe or similar mark they happened to have handy,
which is/was regarded as perfectly acceptable.

Is it possible that in a fancy typeface (or in a handwriting style tending
towards the florid) such marks might overlap the upright of the actual
letter, and appear to be the Polish L-slash?

N.B. I don't speak any of these languages, so please forgive and correct
me if I'm talking nonsense!  :-)

The only other candidate in the ISO document is the L with a dot just to
the right of it, used in Catalan, which doesn't look likely.    :-)

Alec.

..


Alec McAllister
Arts Computing Development Officer
Computing Service
University of Leeds
LS2 9JT
United Kingdom
tel 0532 333573