L2/03-335 Subject: Comments on proposed general category change for Braille symbols From: Jack Maartman Date: 2003-09-20 14:14:24 -0700 Hi Rick: I am looking for data to help me give constructive feedback on the braille issue. There is nothing on the review page, other than what is in your post. I don't know how braille fits into either letter other or symbol other, as theas the range covers a set of symbols that have many applications, including the encoding of braille music. Virtually the only symbols that have almost invariant meanings are the 26 symbols representing lower case letters. Virtually every language encoded uses a kind of Romanization or "phonetic" transcriptionof a given language, and much of the character assignments are arbitrary, character assignments often assembled by missiochristian missionaries wanting to encode a language. I do not understand the difference between SO and Lo, and need a working knowledge of these differences if I am to provide some constructive feedback. It may be that if the archives of the discussion lists are on line, this will help to clarify this. Without further knowledge, I would say that braille would not lend itself well to either category. a cogent example would be found in English braille contractions in English braille. Some examples this ? the ! ~? those ~! these the tilde, might well be treated as a combining category, but the ~ has no meaning as a combining category. It is but a mechanism to assign a short-hand or contraction to assign meaning for words with a similar sound. If you can point me to the deliberations, this would be very helpful.I don'tknow what difference it makes whether Braille is LO or SO. Access to the discussions would be very helpful, if you or someone has the time to write. There is no question that braille is a sort of alphabet, and for that matter a closed system, based on a six dot or 8-dot repertoire. In North America, the 8-dot matrix, is used mostly for computer peripherals. I am told that 8-dot repertoires are printable for some languages, E.G. Japanese and German. The Braille Authority of North America feels that 8-dot braille is not appropriate as a printable set of characters, becaus of spatial considerations. If you can respond to this, it would be helpful, and I will track down the requests in the discussion lists if zI can find them. Regards Jack From: Jack Maartman Date: 2003-09-20 15:36:47 -0700 Greetings: Since braille is a closed system consisting of either 64 or 256 characters depending on whether six or eight dot braille is used, perhaps braille could be considered an alphabet, even though there is no one to one correspondence between the pattern and what the symbol or combinations represeent. Adopting this "paradigm, braille might well be considered an alphabet and thus "letter other, might seem appropriate. Understanding of how braille characters combine to represent various scripts is difficult to understand for those who do not use the system or analyze existing braille codes. I am still trying to find data to support its use as "symbol Other. I regret responding to this message rather than following the thread, but this the best I can do at the moment. Thanks Jack From: Jack Maartman Date: 2003-10-03 12:05:55 -0700 Hi Rick Braille lines end in two ways, either at the end of a word, or using hyphenation rules analagous to printed text. The line breaking characters are the traditional cr/lf pair. There is usually a predetermined number of characters in a braille line, varying according to the specification set by the publishing house or transcriber. Braille formatted for the page always has a cr/lf or presumably a cr or an lf at the end of each line. A paragraph break is indicated by end of line character(s) followed by two spaces. When the control codes for u0010 u0013 are shown these are represented by eight dot patterns, but these can be arbitrary as there is no agreemen as to meaning for eight dot braille. Thus in the US "extended ascii" table the Carriage return is represented 28CD dots-13478 and the linefeed as 28DA dots-24578. To muddy the issue a bit the notetaking device I use represents these characters thus: (cr) 288d dots-1348 (lf) 289A dots-2458 When the notetaker acts as a braille display, however, and can do so only under windows 9x or greater the linebreaks are represented by the conventions in the translation table being used. The Universal English Braille Project wanted to assign both sequence and meaning for all of the 256 characters. I suppose the numbral order used in Unicode, pleases nobody, but really what can one do. Braille formatting on the page is virtually always represented by spaces or strings of other characters. Let me know if I have missed anything. For what it is worth I would say (SYMBOL, OTHER) would carry the day. Finally is there a list of abbreviations and their meanings for the database files? The explanations in the standard and the UCD file presupposes more knowledge than I have. Cheers Jack