L2/03-096
Title: Georgian
Source: Michael Everson
Date: 2003-03-04 10:23:11 -0800

L2/03-087 is an additional request from the Georgian State Department
of Information Technology for a number of things.

1. Information about the correct ordering of the Georgian script is
given (though obviously the code table cannot be changed).

2. One precomposed Georgian letter is proposed (this can't be accepted).

3. Disunification of Nuskhuri from Mkhedruli is proposed.

On this last point, the letter from Ilia II, the Catholicos Patriarch
of all Georgia from January 2001 is presented. This letter DOES
indicate that Georgians do not consider Nuskhuri to be a font variant
of Mkhedruli. It indicates that the two scripts do not stand in
one-to-one relationship to each other insofar as they are used
differently in terms of orthography. A Nuskhuri text may contain
abbreviations which make no sense in Mkhedruli and ligatures which do
not exist in Mkhedruli. The letter indicates that the Georgian
Orthodox Church is the primary user group for this script, and that
they -- and Jost Gippert -- consider it important to be able to
represent a single text with all three scripts.

To recap the history:

Monumental Asomtavruli was carved in stone, like monumental Greek or
Latin. It is analogous to Greek and Latin capitals. A cursive variety
of this script, called Nuskhuri, was derived from Asomtavruli in
handwritten manuscripts. It is analogous to Greek and Latin
minuscules. Just as with Greek and Latin, Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri
letters came to be used together as a regularly casing pair.

Mkhedruli, however, is caseless, and no casing behaviour is expected
or permitted by Georgian users. (The mtavruli titling style of
Mkhedruli is not case; it is a style analogous to small caps or bold
or italic.)

Georgian users working on ecclesiastical texts in Asomtavruli and
Nuskhuri will expect casing behaviour no different from that of Latin
and Greek. Currently the Unicode Standard does not provide this
functionality because Asomtavruli and Mkhedruli do not stand in a
casing relationship with one another. Nor should they.

The Unicode Standard states:

"The Unicode Standard regards Glagolitic as a separate script from
Cyrillic, not as a font change from Cyrillic. This position is taken
primarily because Glagolitic appears unrecognizably different from
Cyrillic, and secondarily because Glagolitic has not grown to match
the expansion of Cyrillic."

This is exactly the same situation with Nuskhuri. It is
unrecognizably different from Mkhedruli, and it has not grown to
match the expansion of Mkhedruli -- a number of new letters have been
added to Mkhedruli (and not all of them are yet encoded in the
Unicode Standard) and while it is possible to devise Nuskhuri
letterforms for them, this is entirely artificial and may even be
considered incorrect by Georgians.

Disadvantages to disunifying Nuskhuri from Mkhedruli? Jost Gippert's
computer archives will need to be updated. He has indicated that he
would be delighted to do so, even though it would take some work.

Advantages to disunifying Nuskhuri from Mkhedruli? Correct casing for
Asomtavruli can be implemented, and the primary user group of these
scripts will be able to make the plain-text distinction that they
have -- for a long time now -- said they wish to make.

--
Michael Everson * * Everson Typography *  * http://www.evertype.com