Re: OT? Languages with letters that always take diacriticals

From: Radovan Garabik (garabik@melkor.dnp.fmph.uniba.sk)
Date: Tue Mar 16 2004 - 10:12:45 EST

  • Next message: Doug Ewell: "Re: OT? Languages with letters that always take diacriticals"

    On Tue, Mar 16, 2004 at 02:24:14PM +0000, Marion Gunn wrote:
    > Scríobh Radovan Garabik <garabik@melkor.dnp.fmph.uniba.sk>:
    > >
    > >Almost all languages using latin script. They use "i" with dot above,
    > >but not "ı" without. Turkish is the (almost) only language that has both :-)
    > >...
    >
    > Irish in Roman script is written i with dot above, Irish in traditional
    > script is written i without dot above. The current flooding of our local
    > advertising and publishing markets by various non-native uncial fonts to
    > write our language goes against tradition in imposing on us that unwanted
    > dot. Is there any way at all that using Unicode can help support our
    > tradition?

    You have to decide one basic philosophical question:
    is your dotless-i the same letter as our "i", only in your
    traditional font, or is it a different letter?
    E.g. if you write foreign name in Irish, let's say "Philadelphia",
    is it with dots or not?
    (For example, old German in Frakkur typeface has been decided to be
    just different font, but the same lattin letters as we know today)

    If it is indeed the same letter, then you just use Irish-like fonts
    for Irish (just the Turks will be confused :-)) with dotless-i
    glyph at U+0069 LATIN SMALL LETTER I

    If it is a different letter, then you should use U+0131 LATIN SMALL LETTER DOTLESS I
    where appropriate, and all should work smoothly (except for
    spellcheckers and such, that assume U+0069 LATIN SMALL LETTER I in words
    - but then it is a bug in spellcheckers)

    But from your description, it seems that it is indeed the same letter
    as "i". Then the non-native fonts should be fixed.

    -- 
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