Re: Unicode complaints

From: Rick McGowan (rick@unicode.org)
Date: Fri Mar 16 2001 - 00:43:49 EST


Markus complained:

> Thai is not stored/used in logical order in Unicode.

Here's my contribution to the FAQ about Thai:

Q. Why isn't Thai stored/used in logical order in Unicode?

A. Once upon a time, the Unicode fore-parents inherited the Thai
industrial standard, which is an 8-bit standard based on typewriter
technology of long ago -- with visual ordering of the re-ordrant vowel
signs and no viramas. Then, seeing the major flaw in the Thai industrial
standard, the wise Unicode fore-parents added a little set of LOGICALLY
ORDERED vowel signs to the Thai block so that implementors could Do Things
Right. Then along came the great "merger" with early drafts of 10646.
Part of the big international compromise between the two superpowers
resulted in exclusion of the logically ordered Thai vowels, to get back to
the basics of how it was done in the previous standard. (I presume that
people believed it was done that way by the Thai industrial standard in
full knowledge of possible ways to encode the script.)

So, the Unicode fore-parents are not to blame for lack of logically
ordered Thai vowel signs in Unicode.

        Rick



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