Re: Furigana

From: Peter_Constable@sil.org
Date: Fri Aug 16 2002 - 04:38:43 EDT


On 08/14/2002 05:53:58 AM "James Kass" wrote:

>Once a meaning like
>"INTERLINEAR ANNOTATION ANCHOR" has been assigned to
>a code point, any application which chooses to use that code
>point for any other purpose would be at fault.

Since it's for internal use only, nobody would ever know. Unicode
conformance must always be understood in terms of what happens externally,
between two processes, or between a process and a user. What goes on
inside doesn't matter as long as it is conformant on the outside. If my
program includes a portion of code that interprets all USVs as jelly-bean
flavours but doesn't let any symptoms of that leak outside, I haven't
voilated any conformance requirement.

>In other words, if these characters are to be "used internally for
>Japanese Ruby (furigana), etc.", then they ought to be able to
>be used externally, as well.

They simply aren't adequate for anything more than the simplest of cases.
Moreover, the recommdations of TR#20 / the W3C character model clearly
indicate that markup is to be preferred for applications like this.

>Because it seems to be an oxymoron.

I think most would agree that that's clear now, but it wasn't always
understood so clearly.

- Peter

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Constable

Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA
Tel: +1 972 708 7485
E-mail: <peter_constable@sil.org>



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