02-13-2013, 01:07 AM
The trac is not working, so I'm going to make a post here. I have been asked to provide a comprehensive list of characters unique to the Spanish language. I have compiled a list which also incorporates the Catalan language. Now I will explain the differences between these languages to enable users to choose the best character set for a given task.
In Spain there are at least 5 languages spoken. The most common is Spanish with more than 450M people speaking it worldwide. Catalan or Valencian are the next most popular with an estimated 12M speakers. Understanding those figures alone will enable you to imagine/visualise the importance of each one.
"¿¡" In Spanish these inverted characters are positioned at the beginning of questions or interjections. The inclusion of these characters is omitted by most people when writing informally as the meaning usually remains the same. I am unsure about their inclusion in Spanish passwords as I have no data to assess. Personally I do use "¡" in my passwords as "¡" is a single key press, while "¿" is a combination with the shift key. I believe the combination keypress may deter people from including this character in their passwords.
Ñ is a letter that is only used in Spanish and Ç is used in Catalan/Valencian, but also in Portuguese and French.
About accent marks: Please read this (is long to post it here)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_ort...ed_letters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_%...%29#Hiatus
Probably the least commonly used characters are diaeresis, üÜ in Spanish and ïà in Catalan. Again, I am unsure if these are frequently included in passwords as it is faster to write words which do not include the accent mark, however it is still possible people may use them.
The remaining characters are:
€ - euro symbol (Alt Gr + E)
¨ - diaeresis (shift combination, position may vary)
ª - feminine ordinal indicator (shift + º)
´ - acute accent mark (shift combination, position may vary)
· - middle dot (shift + 3) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpunct]
º - masculine ordinal indicator (on the left of 1)
Here you can see a picture of a typical Spanish keyboard.
Then, these are the charsets I would do:
Spanish:
€¡¨ª´·º¿ÃÉÃÑÓÚÜáéÃñóúü
Catalan:
€¡¨ª´·º¿ÀÇÈÉÃÃÒÓÚÜà çèéÃïòóúü
Full:
€¡¨ª´·º¿ÀÃÇÈÉÃÃÑÒÓÚÜà áçèéÃïñòóúü
Some characters are not supported by ISO-8859-1, ISO-8859-15 and Windows Codepage 1252. e.g.: €
With all this information available, what should be included in the charset/s?
In Spain there are at least 5 languages spoken. The most common is Spanish with more than 450M people speaking it worldwide. Catalan or Valencian are the next most popular with an estimated 12M speakers. Understanding those figures alone will enable you to imagine/visualise the importance of each one.
"¿¡" In Spanish these inverted characters are positioned at the beginning of questions or interjections. The inclusion of these characters is omitted by most people when writing informally as the meaning usually remains the same. I am unsure about their inclusion in Spanish passwords as I have no data to assess. Personally I do use "¡" in my passwords as "¡" is a single key press, while "¿" is a combination with the shift key. I believe the combination keypress may deter people from including this character in their passwords.
Ñ is a letter that is only used in Spanish and Ç is used in Catalan/Valencian, but also in Portuguese and French.
About accent marks: Please read this (is long to post it here)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_ort...ed_letters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_%...%29#Hiatus
Probably the least commonly used characters are diaeresis, üÜ in Spanish and ïà in Catalan. Again, I am unsure if these are frequently included in passwords as it is faster to write words which do not include the accent mark, however it is still possible people may use them.
The remaining characters are:
€ - euro symbol (Alt Gr + E)
¨ - diaeresis (shift combination, position may vary)
ª - feminine ordinal indicator (shift + º)
´ - acute accent mark (shift combination, position may vary)
· - middle dot (shift + 3) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpunct]
º - masculine ordinal indicator (on the left of 1)
Here you can see a picture of a typical Spanish keyboard.
Then, these are the charsets I would do:
Spanish:
€¡¨ª´·º¿ÃÉÃÑÓÚÜáéÃñóúü
Catalan:
€¡¨ª´·º¿ÀÇÈÉÃÃÒÓÚÜà çèéÃïòóúü
Full:
€¡¨ª´·º¿ÀÃÇÈÉÃÃÑÒÓÚÜà áçèéÃïñòóúü
Some characters are not supported by ISO-8859-1, ISO-8859-15 and Windows Codepage 1252. e.g.: €
With all this information available, what should be included in the charset/s?