Re: Tajik alphabet code

From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Mon Mar 01 2004 - 16:53:27 EST

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    On 01/03/2004 13:19, Philippe Verdy wrote:

    >From: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk@qaya.org>
    >
    >
    >>I understand that there have been previous attempts to define a new or
    >>extended Cyrillic 8-but character set supporting Central Asian
    >>languages, but that such proposals have been rejected. I hardly think
    >>that Aso would have turned to the Unicode list if he wanted to define an
    >>8-bit encoding.
    >>
    >>
    >
    >I understand that it has been rejected for inclusion in an international
    >standard, but still this does not forbid Tadjikistan to define its own national
    >8-bit standard for writing Tajik in Cyrillic... In the hope that this standard
    >would promote the support for the characters (missing in the Cyrillic version of
    >ISO-8859) and initiate the commercial support of appropriate keyboards and
    >softwares for this Tajik variant.
    >
    >If Tajikistan defines this standard, it will get its right of entry into the
    >IANA database of charsets, and Unicode will have to support a complete mapping
    >for it (if characters are missing), whever it likes it or not, and even if this
    >standard is not accepted in a chapter of the ISO 8859 international standard...
    >
    >There's no contradiction here: Tajikistan has the right to define what are its
    >own needs for its own official language; going to an international standard can
    >come later, once Tajikistan has proven that it helped promote the correct
    >support of its language by various software and hardware solutions (keyboards,
    >fonts, sorting and collating in relational databases, transcoders, filesystem
    >file names, various communication tools including low-cost ones with limited
    >processing resources like mobile phones and SMS messaging...).
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    Aha, here's my way to get the characters I want into Unicode although
    they have been rejected! I find some near-bankrupt island state and
    persuade (with a little financial lubrication) its government to set up
    an official standards committee with me as the chair. I then issue an
    official national standard including the characters I want to get into
    Unicode. And, from what you say, Unicode will be obliged to accept my
    characters.

    :-)

    As for Tajikistan, don't go off into wild speculations about what they
    might want, but let them say.

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


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