Re: Aramaic scripts

From: Kenneth Whistler (kenw@sybase.com)
Date: Sun Aug 10 2003 - 18:53:35 EDT

  • Next message: Michael Everson: "[hebrew] Re: Roadmap---Mandaic, Early Aramaic, Samaritan"

    Raymond Mercier wrote:

    > There are less obvious omissions:
    >
    > 1. Kharoshthi, a RtoL script much used in North West India,
    > and regarded by everyone as a derivative from a form of
    > the Aramaic script used in that region. ...

    And to add to Michael's reply, the historical status of
    Kharoshthi as a derivative of Aramaic is not at issue here.

    An extensive proposal for Kharoshthi has been approved by
    the UTC, encoded at U+10A00..U+10A5F, and has started its
    way into further rounds of review and ballotting in WG2.

    If you are concerned about Kharoshthi, the right thing to
    be doing now is to get involved in the national body review
    of the Khoroshthi encoding proposal in WG2, rather than
    battering a suggested summary of "early Semitic scripts"
    aimed at helping the roadmapping of those scripts for
    possible future encoding.

    Note also that a "roadmapping" by Michael is not
    intended to be a definitive scholarly work about the
    history of Aramaic or any other script.

    >
    > 2. Pahlavi, widely used to write Middle Persian.
    > This involved a troublesome mixture of Persian reading
    > of Aramaic words, a subject requiring more elaboration
    > than is needed here.

    Also, as Michael indicated, independently roadmapped
    (for the block at U+0800..U+085F),
    with a proposal available for review and comment:

    http://www.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/n2556.pdf

    That proposal clearly acknowledges the Aramaic origins
    of Pahlavi. But again, the useful input here would be
    to examine and provide feedback on the proposed encoding
    of Avestan and Pahlavi.

    --Ken

    >
    >
    > Raymond Mercier
    >



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Aug 10 2003 - 19:22:54 EDT