Re: i18n(guy), etc.

On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 08:14:34 -0500, Peter T. Daniels
<grammatim@...> wrote:

> If Nicholas wrote "i18n guy," then I supposed he was using an
> appellative to note that i18n is a male person.

No, it was a mistake to embed a space. "i18nguy" corresponds to
"grammatim"; it's one's e-mail identifier.

> So what does i18n mean?

I explained that, last night, in a message that, I hope, reached Qalam.

> No, no one has said, "i18n means '...'."

Please see above. It's a short, convenient form of a long (20-letter)
word, "internationalization", a topic that requires at least some
knowledge of writing systems; it is a very active field.

> Why is this List devoted almost exclusively to computers, instead of to
> writing systems?

Over-emphasis, just now. In the long run, computers are as important in
relation to writing systems as printing or type design. (Quick thought.)

> Nu, who are you? And, for that matter, who is Tex?

Tex Texin is apparently a writing-system expert and was/is a Qalam
subscriber; he recently posted a notice to Qalam about a forthcoming
(Unicode?) conference. He is "i18nguy". See <http://www.i18nguy.com/>, a
very nice Web site.

--
Nicholas Bodley /*|*\ Waltham, Mass.
The curious hermit -- autodidact and polymath