From: [email protected]
Date: Fri Apr 23 2004 - 11:59:05 EDT
I'm surfacing an issue from [email protected] because it may have
wider applicability.
Currently, it's the rule that variation selector characters can't be
applied to combining characters. This is sensible in the case of true
diacritical marks: if two marks differ in shape, they ought in general
to be encoded separately, since marks are primarily shape-based rather
than functional in the first place.
It's not so clear, however, that this rule is appropriate when applied
to vowel signs. If some textual traditions represent vowels a and a'
differently whereas others unify them, and if the variation is not
predictable at the Unicode level, then it would seem appropriate to
provide a vowel sign for a and define a VSS <a, VS1> to represent a'
in those textual traditions in which it is in use. The alternative of
providing a distinct vowel sign a' and treating the difference as one of
spelling impacts backward compatibility and burdens textual processes.
Comments?
-- John Cowan [email protected] www.reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan Promises become binding when there is a meeting of the minds and consideration is exchanged. So it was at King's Bench in common law England; so it was under the common law in the American colonies; so it was through more than two centuries of jurisprudence in this country; and so it is today. --Specht v. Netscape
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