That anyone could seriously consider adding the Klingon script to Unicode
seems preposterous. Even if someone were to provide an "accurate" script, a
sample font, etc that meets the general requirements of a proposal, the idea
is quite silly. I am surprised that the consortium hasn't simply refused it
with a polite suggestion to use the private use areas for those Klingon
speakers/readers/writers out there.
What is the rationale for allowing this proposal to see the light of another
day?
1) Certainly there can't be any political influence...a Klingon govt doesn't
exist. No Klingon has ever existed. Oops, I hope I haven't accidentally done
the equivalent of telling U.S. children that the Easter Bunny doesn't exist.
2) Is there an economic influence? How much money can the people at
www.klingon.org throw at this? Will the Unicode consortium benefit? Will any
reasonable number of people benefit financially from this? Will font makers
make any revenue from a Klingon font? Will book publishers?
3) Does a set of historical documents exist? How can there be? It's
fictional. Historical documents cannot exist if there is no history.
Documents that purport to be such are fictional entertainment at best. There
is no historical benefit of encoding the script.
4) Is there an academic benefit? What university or college has a Klingon
language, art, or history dept? Oh no! What have I found?
http://babel.uoregon.edu/yamada/guides/klingon.html
5) Is there a cultural benefit? O brother...
6) I can't even believe I'm trying to produce a rationale against
this...I've got to stop.
No practical reason for encoding this script exists. It's silliness.
Including it in the Unicode repertoire is like embedding "Easter Eggs" into
software products. Yes, people will find it, see it; some will smile at it,
maybe laugh; promoters will elbow each other and point out their
contribution; others will wonder why anyone wasted their time.
Put me in the last category,
John O'Conner
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:21:19 EDT