Re: Extension A unihan character info

From: Glenn Adams (glenn@spyglass.com)
Date: Sat Jan 25 1997 - 14:01:43 EST


At 05:06 AM 1/25/97 -0800, unicode@Unicode.ORG wrote:
>At 21:17 -0800 1997-01-24, Doug Schitter wrote:
>>In the latest updates on the Unicode.org page, there is mention
>>that the range of 3400..4DFF has been reserved for 6585 characters
>>called "CJK Unified Ideograph, Extension A. ". These have apparently
>>passed level 3 acceptance.
>
>What do you mean by this? I am informed that the WG2 "straw poll" of
>national bodies with regard to Ext. A in the BMP was "inconclusive" with 8
>member bodies voting for and 6 voting against. (The question asked the
>member bodies was: "Do you agree that Ext. A go into the BMP, so long as
>the IRG never asks to put any other CJK characters into the BMP after
>that?") I don't know what the final disposition of the Ext. A was in
>Singapore: if the story is the same as for a lot of little Latin letters,
>decision was deferred until the next meeting, or until next year.
>
>At least one member body's view was that the BMP was too precious to give
>another 10% to CJK characters, considering that Plane 2 is to be dedicated
>to CJK, and 8 rows of the BMP are there simply to give access to the
>supplementary planes.

By now you should have received my earlier response to Doug's inquiry.
To add a few details in response to Michael:

1. WG2 agreed in Singapore to proceed with Extension A in the BMP.
Given the new roadmap for BMP usage, document N1499, also accepted by
WG2, there is clearly sufficient room for both Extension A and other
scripts/characters deemed to be reasonable targets for the BMP. These
other scripts/characters include: Maldivian, Samaritan, Syriac, Phonecian,
Old Aramaic, Tifinagh, Avestan, Sinhalese, Tibetan Extensions, Mongolian,
Ethiopic, Cherokee, Canadian Syllabics, Ogham, Runic, Burmese, Khmer, Dai,
Cham, Tai Lue, Tai Nuea, Lepcha, Limbu, 'Phags-Pa, Siddham, Meitei, Javanese,
Batak, Buginese, Lisu, Karenni, Glagolitic, Braille, Kuoyu, and Yi. With
all of these encoded including extension A, and including the Kang Xi,
Ideograph, and Yi radicals added in this meeting, there will remain 271 free
columns (a column being 16 cells) in the BMP. 271 * 16 = 4336 cells.

2. Given the clear road map, and the realistic assessment of requirements,
WG2 believes the most prudent action now is to proceed with placing Extension
A in the BMP. If there were a clear demand on this space by something else
on the books, I'm sure that WG2 would not proceed in this fashion. Their
decision to proceed is based on full consideration of the overall requirements
and the currently available space.

Regards,
Glenn Adams



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