Re: vertical direction control

From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Wed Mar 24 2004 - 18:04:32 EST

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    On 24/03/2004 12:31, Kenneth Whistler wrote:

    > ...
    >
    >Besides, this is really a very, very marginal concern. All real world
    >exemplars of boustrophedon are *not* bidirectional text, and all
    >real world exemplars of bidirectional text are not laid out in
    >boustrophedon. Why? Well, because it would be a stupid thing to
    >do and give readers and writers headaches.
    >
    >
    >
    I wonder if there are in fact any cases where fixed direction text is
    embedded in boustrophedon. For example, when numbers or foreign loan
    words are written in boustrophedon texts, do they have fixed LTR or RTL
    directionality? I don't think that would necessarily be stupid, and just
    because it seems stupid to us that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
    (There are many things in non-western scripts which seem stupid to me,
    and there are doubtless many things in Latin script which seem stupid to
    non-westerners.) If this does happen, there may need to be ways to
    indicate this - that is, if in future any boustrophedon text is defined
    in Unicode. Indeed, whether or not it happens someone needs to define
    the expected appearance of small groups of non-boustprohedon characters
    appearing in a boustrophedon text, even if vice versa is less of a problem.

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


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