(recode.info)Mule

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Mule as a multiplexed charset
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   This version of `recode' barely starts supporting multiplexed or
super-charsets, that is, those encoding methods by which a single text
stream may contain a combination of more than one constituent charset.
The only multiplexed charset in `recode' is `Mule', and even then, it
is only very partially implemented: the only correspondence available
is with `Latin-1'.  The author fastly implemented this only because he
needed this for himself.  However, it is intended that Mule support to
become more real in subsequent releases of `recode'.

   Multiplexed charsets are not to be confused with mixed charset texts
(Note: Mixed).  For mixed charset input, the rules allowing to
distinguish which charset is current, at any given place, are kind of
informal, and driven from the semantics of what the file contains.  On
the other side, multiplexed charsets are _designed_ to be interpreted
fairly precisely, and quite independently of any informational context.

   The spelling `Mule' originally stands for `_mul_tilingual
_e_nhancement to GNU Emacs', it is the result of a collective effort
orchestrated by Handa Ken'ichi since 1993.  When `Mule' got rewritten
in the main development stream of GNU Emacs 20, the FSF renamed it
`MULE', meaning `_mul_tilingual _e_nvironment in GNU Emacs'.  Even if
the charset `Mule' is meant to stay internal to GNU Emacs, it sometimes
breaks loose in external files, and as a consequence, a recoding tool
is sometimes needed.  Within Emacs, `Mule' comes with `Leim', which
stands for `_l_ibraries of _e_macs _i_nput _m_ethods'.  One of these
libraries is named `quail'(1).

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Usually, quail means quail egg in Japanese, while egg alone is
usually chicken egg.  Both quail egg and chicken egg are popular food
in Japan.  The `quail' input system has been named because it is
smaller that the previous `EGG' system.  As for `EGG', it is the
translation of `TAMAGO'.  This word comes from the Japanese sentence
`_ta_kusan _ma_tasete _go_mennasai', meaning `sorry to have let you
wait so long'.  Of course, the publication of `EGG' has been delayed
many times...  (Story by Takahashi Naoto)