Thai unalom symbol

[Jukka K. Korpela]

2014-07-02 6:10, James Clark wrote:

> The unalom is widespread in Thailand. For example, the Thai Red Cross
> Society was originally founded as the Red Unalom Society, and its logo
> was a red Unalom combined with a cross. It forms the main component of
> the seal of Rama I (founder of the current Thai Royal dynasty). It is
> even part of the logo for the Royal Thai Army. The unalom used in Thai
> Buddhist culture in similar ways to how a cross is used in Western
> Christian culture.

Is there evidence of its use in text? This should be an essential 
question when discussing whether it should be defined as a Unicode 
character. Use as “logo” or, rather, as a standalone graphic symbol does 
not really mean it is used as a character.

> The Royal Institute Thai Dictionary (the authoritative dictionary for
> the Thai language) has an entry for unalom showing the symbol:
>
> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BrdB2IsCYAAu4gP.jpg:large

A dictionary may explain a name of a symbol by showing the symbol, but 
this does not constitute use as a character.

> Since it is not a character (in the
> sense of being part of the Thai writing system), the name should
> probably be "THAI UNALOM".

I think that here you mean “letter” when you write “character”.

Yucca