Taiwanese: unicode of o with dot right above

From: Kiatgak (kiatgak@pchome.com.tw)
Date: Sat Aug 12 2000 - 03:20:15 EDT


Taiwanese(or Holooe) is a latin based language.

I can not find the unicodes of the 2 base characters:
"O/o with a dot right above",
which are pronounced as "OPEN O"(open-mid back rounded vowel).
Their outlook can be viewed at 4.2 of
http://www.taiwanese.com/tp/tpsurvey/tpsurvey.pdf.

For conformance to the unicode standard,
what unicodes should be used to represent them?

1. U+0186/U+0254 (LATIN CAPITAL/SMALL LETTER OPEN O)
    with alternative form in font design.

    This solution is based on the pronunciation and need the help of font
design,
    but it induces different outlooks of OPEN O. Is that allowed or
adequate?

2. U+004F/U+006F(O/o) + U+00B7(MIDDLE DOT)
    with the GSUB to fix the outlooks in font design.

    The problem is U+00B7 is not a combining character.
    Another problem of the same reason:
        Is it a valid sequence if a combining character follows them, eg.
            U+004F/U+006F(O/o) + U+00B7(MIDDLE DOT) + U+0301(COMBINING ACUTE
ACCENT)
    Is such a solution allowed or adequate?

3. U+004F/U+006F(O/o) + U+05C1(HEBREW POINT SHIN DOT).

    U+05C1 is the only combining character with a dot in the north-east
corner
    which I can find in unicode 3.0.
    To use it is only based on the outlook.

    The dot position is different slightly: one at right above and the other
at above right.
    Another problem: I do not know what U+05C1 is used for.
    It seems violate the unicode spirit: to use characters by their meaning
not by outlooks, isn't it?
    One more serious problem: is a glyph with 2 scripts (Latin and Hebrew)
allowed in unicode?
    Is it allow in Truetype?
    Although the latter seems a problem of font design,
    but it reveals a basic problem related to unicode and Truetype:
          Can characters be composed with different scripts like this one
(i.e. Latin + Hebrew, etc.)?
          Is script-language-feature structure adequate in Truetype?

4. U+004F/U+006F(O/o) + U+031B (COMBINING HORN) or precomposed ones
   U+01A0/U+01A1(LATIN CAPITAL/SMALL LETTER O WITH HORN).

   This solution is based on the similar outlooks.
   It has the same problem as 3.: use character by outlooks not by meaning.
   Even worse: it changes the shape of a horn into a dot.
   One pro: it belongs to Latin script.

5. To apply a new combining character.

   It is a long long way to go (and maybe there is no end).
   In fact, Te Khai-su and Michael Everson had applied on 1997-06-22, but
their proposal
   was rejected(or withdrawn). But that proposal inquires many precomposed
characters.
   If apply only a new combining character, will it be accepted?

Thanks in advance for any suggestion.

Kiatgak

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