Reynolds, Gregg wrote:
> Unicode codepoint U+0649 is defined as "alef maqsurah", and the
> representative glyph shows a dotless ya.
It is clear that the glyphs are merely representative,
and that other forms are not only possible but may be preferred.
U+0123 shows only one of three possible glyphs for this character,
and the "representative" glyph is in fact dis-preferred.
> This is not so much incorrect as
> misleading. The term "alef maqsurah" denotes a phonological, not a
> graphemic, phenomenon. It may be represented by either a dotless ya (ram_A,
> he threw) or by a plain old alef (ghazA, he invaded).
I don't know enough about Unicode Arabic to say authoritatively
that this was the intent, but I'm willing to bet a reasonable
number of zlotniks that it was. (Tribal elders, what say you?)
> If the character semantics of U+0649 are to be "alef maqsurah",
> then the text should make clear that the presentation of the character may
> use either of two forms, "dotless ya" or "alef" (alef=U+0627).
Doubtless a useful note.
> A minor point: it should be "maqsura", not "maksura", since it is spelled
> with U+0642 "qaf", not U+0643 "kaf".
Accept the fact that the names aren't going to change, despite a number
of them being desperately wrong. U+01A2/A3 should have been LATIN LETTER
GHA, not LATIN LETTER OI, and I'm told that the name of U+05AA HEBREW
ACCENT YERAH BEN YOMO is misvowelled, and should have been
YAREAH BEN YOMO ("day-old moon" -- from its shape).
But because ISO character sets depend on the stability of names (in
ISO theory, characters in different sets are identical iff their names
are identical), changing them is effectively impossible, and inferring
character properties from the names (as we have been reminded recently)
is fraught with peril.
-- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! / Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau, Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau / Und trank die Milch vom Paradies. -- Coleridge / Politzer
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