L2/08-279

Date/Time:    Sat Jun  7 12:36:34 CDT 2008
Contact:      mpsuzuki@hiroshima-u.ac.jp
Name:         suzuki toshiya
Report Type:  Public Review Issue
Opt Subject:  Comment on UTR#45/PRI#120

Dear Sirs,

I think UTR#45 is a document summarizing UTC minutes,
and the user should not expect UTR#45 covers all
ideographs submitted to UTC which are under the discussion.

One of the interesting informations for non-UTC members
would be the ongoing status of each ideographs, like,

* is this ideograph submitted to UTC but UTC has not concluded yet?
* did UTC conclude to propose it to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 IRG?
* did UTC conclude it as inappropriate to propose to ISO?
* did IRG refuse UTC proposal?

The status C, D, E are "proposed to ISO", clear status.

The status U is "duplicated (and not proposed, cancelled,
or to be cancelled)", clear status.

The status V does not indicate the status of standardization,
I think. It is independent information for further discussion.

The status X can include 2 cases:
  x1: the ideograph is still under discussion in UTC.
  x2: UTC concluded to submit, official submission is being prepared.

The status W can include 2 cases:
  w1: UTC classified it as not suitable.
  w2: UTC classified it as suitable but IRG classified it as not suitable.

I wish more detailed status in standardization processing
context are added to UTR#45. Maybe, for the members of UTC,
such informations are not needed to be duplicated in UTR#45
(it makes the cost to maintain UTR#45 expensive). But for
non-UTC members, the minutes of UTC are not updated quickly,
so UTR#45 may be expected to summarize the status.

==============================================================

About the glyph source, I'm questionable about a few sources.

DYC: ShuoWenJieZhi-Zhu (説文解字注)
-----------------------------------
>From the syntax of source index, I guess it is expected
to refer the exemplification glyph (not glyphs in description
text) of ShuoWenJieZhi-Zhu, aslike KangXiZiDian is used so.
It's questionable if ShuoWenJieZhi-Zhu is appropriate source
for the normal CJK ideographs in use currently.

ShuoWenJieZhi itself was designed to analize the glyph shape
in small seal script (小篆). Usually it is recognized
that a transformation from seal script to SongTi (宋体)
or MingTi (明体、明朝体) current-in-use is unique 1-to-1
mapping without disambiguity. In fact, the original
edition of KangXiZiDian (康煕字典) refers ShuoWenJieZhi
without corresponding glyph shape in small seal script
(later edition added them out of columns). However,
ISO/IEC 10646 Annex S rules are not designed for seal
script, thus, single seal script glyph can generates
multiple incognite glyphs. I take 2 examples in GanluZishu
(干禄字書): the inventions of "properly-"shaped KaiTi (楷体)
glyphs to simulate the small seal script in ShuoWenJieZhi
but they had failed to be popularly accepted.

https://www.codeblog.org/blog/mpsuzuki/images/20080608_0.jpg
https://www.codeblog.org/blog/mpsuzuki/images/20080608_1.jpg

If UTC proposes some small seal characters to Old Hanzi
group, ShuoWenJieZhi is appropriate source of glyphs
(although ShuoWenJieZhi has some suspicious shapes that
their archaeologic forms are quite rare or cannot be tracked).
But it's not appropriate as a source of glyphs of current-
in-use characters, I think. Rather, the informations on
"who or which book had transformed this KaiTi or MingTi
shape from ShuoWenJieZhi" is appropriate to identify
the shape of glyph. Of course, it is good idea to refer
ShuoWenJieZhi as an additional note.

GB 18030-2000
-------------
There's already revised edition of GB 18030:2005. Yet
I've not compared the ideograph shapes in edition 2000
and 2005 (the shape of Japanese kana are remarkably
updated), it is argued that some ideograph glyph shapes
are incompatibly updated and obsoleted specification must
be refered? Refering obsolete standard makes me remind
the case of Japanese JIS C 6226-1978 versus JIS X 0208-1983.

==============================================================

Regards,
suzuki toshiya @ Hiroshima University

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
(End of Report)