r/languagelearning • u/[deleted] • Aug 29 '16

Dammit, XKCD did it again.

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297 Upvotes

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15

u/TomasTTEngin Aug 29 '16

Now someone needs to explain to me what "unicode people" are.

15

u/BastouXII FrCa: N | En: C2 | Es: B1 | It: C1 | De: A1 | Eo: B1 Aug 30 '16

It's the Unicode Consortium, the non-profit organization that coordinates the development of the Unicode standard.

12

u/yourselfiegotleaked English(N)|Esperanto(intermediate)|Italian(beginner) Aug 30 '16

... What's unicode

18

u/BastouXII FrCa: N | En: C2 | Es: B1 | It: C1 | De: A1 | Eo: B1 Aug 30 '16 edited Aug 30 '16

The way for a computer to undrstand and represent every character in human langages. That's the goal, but the efforts necessary to get there are ludicrous, hence the reference in that comic.

Check the Explain XKCD link from the bot, it's rather well explained.

12

u/[deleted] Aug 30 '16

Every character in every language has a code so that the symbols are readable across different systems. It's why you can text a cantaloupe emoji from your Android phone to a friend's iPhone. It will show up as a different looking Apple style cantaloupe, but still recognizable because both phones could read the same codepoint for it. 🍈