Re: Questions on ZWNBS - for line initial holam plus alef

From: Peter Kirk (peter.r.kirk@ntlworld.com)
Date: Fri Aug 08 2003 - 15:54:28 EDT

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    On 08/08/2003 08:54, Philippe Verdy wrote:

    > ... Could there be another codepoint assigned that has
    >
    >these properties:
    >
    >20CF;ZERO WIDTH SYMBOL;Sk;0;ON;<compat> 0020;;;;N;;;;;
    >
    >i.e. being considered symbolic, not a whitespace, with
    >combining class 0 (not combining), and used as an
    >explicit base for a isolated spacing diacritic to never show
    >with a dotted circle? (note U+20CF is just a suggestion, as
    >it fits at end of the symbolic block used for currency symbols,
    >just before the "extended" combining characters block, and
    >because the U+02XX block where other "Sk" spacing
    >diacritics are defined is full).
    >
    >The compatibility decomposition to a space is to make it
    >in sync with other compatibly decomposable spacing
    >diacritics.
    >
    >The new character would allow to represent diacritics that currently
    >don't have a spacing counterpart, and use them as if they were letter
    >like. Let's look at a similar diacritic which currently has an existing
    >"precombined" spacing version:
    >
    >00B4;ACUTE ACCENT;Sk;0;ON;<compat> 0020 0301;;;;N;SPACING ACUTE;;;;
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    Philippe, this sounds like an excellent suggestion, at least in general
    terms. There is a missing function here, which has been provided (since
    Unicode 1.0) by overloading the characters space and NBSP with an
    inappropriate second function. Of course we can't make existing practice
    illegal, but we can recommend that in future versions of the standard
    your new ZERO WIDTH SYMBOL character should be used for display of
    isolated diacritics where there is no separate spacing form. We can also
    suggest that the width of the combination should be that of the
    diacritic only.

    But I'm not sure that ZERO WIDTH SYMBOL is the best name, unless you are
    suggesting other uses in which it really has zero width. Well, it might
    have in a case like line initial holam which shifts on to a following
    silent alef, but that is a rather special case. 

    -- 
Peter Kirk
peter@qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk@qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/

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