Re: Latin ligatures and Unicode

From: Arno Schmitt (
Date: Tue Dec 28 1999 - 12:41:34 EST schrieb:
> Arno Schmitt wrote:
> >For German -- both Roman/Antiqua and Blackletter/Fraktur --
> rendering software that can handle hyphenation can handle
> ligation.
> There is a rule (and an exception):
> Where hyphenation is possible (where a soft hyphen is placed
> by the user or the hyphention program), ligation is not allowed...
> ^^^^^^^^^^^
> Good point. One question, though: how can a hyphenation
> algorithm know where to hyphenate "wachstube"?
> Peter

German hyphenation programs work on three levels:
1. exceptions
2. components of composed words (haupt-, markt-, staats-, wieder-
   prefixes (von-, vor-), and suffixes (-keit, -zeug)
3. the rules

For Wachstube the user has to put the soft hyphen. (as hinted

Why should he insert both a soft hyphen and a non-ligator?
If he/she does not what hyphenation in the whole paragraph, most
programs allows to switch hyphenation off. So he/she can use the
soft hyphen although no hyphenation is desired. But if one wants
hyphenation, but not in that particular word, but the letters that
can form a ligature should not ligate here?

