RE: dotless j

From: Edward Cherlin (edward.cherlin.sy.67@aya.yale.edu)
Date: Thu Jul 08 1999 - 03:13:48 EDT


At 02:52 -0700 7/6/1999, Michael Everson wrote:
[snip]

>May I point out again that a dotless j has been requested by a bunch of
>mathematics publishing experts.
who know what they want to see on the page, but not necessarily the best
way to get it.

>--
>Michael Everson * Everson Gunn Teoranta * http://www.indigo.ie/egt
>15 Port Chaeimhghein Íochtarach; Baile Átha Cliath 2; Éire/Ireland
>Guthán: +353 1 478 2597 ** Facsa: +353 1 478 2597 (by arrangement)
>27 Páirc an Fhéithlinn; Baile an Bhóthair; Co. Átha Cliath; Éire

Yes, we need a dotless j. A multitude of them, in fact, in any fonts to be
used for mathematics. But dotless j does not have the semantics of a
character. It is a glyph variant of the familiar character j, to be used
only in composed characters.

The necessity for keeping glyph variants out of a character standard
shouldn't be that hard to understand. They're rather like positional
variants of phonemes. The realms of phonemes and of phones are different,
and one can't be shoehorned into the other. The same is true of characters
and glyphs.

--
Edward Cherlin   edward.cherlin.sy.67@aya.yale.edu
"It isn't what you don't know that hurts you, it's
what you know that ain't so."--Mark Twain, or else
some other prominent 19th century humorist and wit



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