Story thread · 2 reports / 1 sources

The dirham sign's digital debut is more than mere symbolism

thenationalnews.com · 4hShare

Money is an inescapable reality of life and, as such, the everyday symbols we use to represent it are potent pieces of visual shorthand. However, as with any human invention, they come with a few quirks. The UK’s £ sign is derived from the Latin word libra, meaning “balance” or “scales”, China and Japan share the same ¥ sign, and the $ sign is thought by some to have its origins in a different currency entirely – the peso. Such signs are now part and parcel of the digital age. Countries with long-established currencies benefit from their symbols having already been embedded in keyboards , banking systems, trading platforms, websites and accounting software. Such ubiquity is part of the infrastructure of 21st-century commerce. Now, the UAE ’s dirham is joining them. Last week, Unicode – the technology industry’s leading body for standardising emojis and digital characters – revealed that the dirham symbol has been adopted, making it easier for computer and smartphone makers to include i

First report: Keyed in: UAE dirham symbol makes debut in Unicode 18.0 — thenationalnews.com, 2d