RE: Latin ligatures and Unicode

From: Michael Everson (everson@egt.ie)
Date: Mon Dec 20 1999 - 13:27:27 EST


Ar 11:03 +0000 1999-12-20, scríobh Marco.Cimarosti@icl.com:

>Why is this new zero-width ligator being proposed, rather than overloading
>the existing zero-width joiner with this new function? (ZWJ currently has no
>defined meaning for European scripts, right?)

The arguments are rather subtle, but there are good reasons for considering
the two separate. It has to do with bidi as well as the inherent nature of
the script (i.e. European scripts are inherently non-cursive, but Arabic is
inherently cursive).

>Will the new ZWL be used also for non-European scripts? Particularly, what
>would be its meaning with Indic and cursive scripts (Arabic, Mongolian,
>Syriac)?

The ZWL is intended for use with Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Armenian, Runic,
Etruscan, and Ogham. At least I know it would satisfy the requirements
those scripts have. It could also be used for some as-yet unencoded
scripts, such as Cirth.

Michael Everson ** Everson Gunn Teoranta ** http://www.egt.ie
15 Port Chaeimhghein Íochtarach; Baile Átha Cliath 2; Éire/Ireland
Vox +353 1 478 2597 ** Fax +353 1 478 2597 ** Mob +353 86 807 9169
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