From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Thu Apr 29 2004 - 11:35:09 EDT
On 29/04/2004 06:32, Andrew C. West wrote:
>On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 05:17:27 -0700, Peter Kirk wrote:
>
>
>>Not really. Acceptance of the proposal would create an expectation that
>>Phoenician texts should be encoded with the new Phoenician characters,
>>and so that existing practices are wrong and should be changed.
>>
>>
>
>No, I don't think so. If you transliterate a Phoenician text into Hebrew, that
>is perfectly OK; if you transliterate it into Latin, Cyrillic or Mongolian, that
>is also perfectly OK if your target audience is more familiar with those
>scripts; and if you transliterate it using the new Phoenician characters that is
>also OK if that's what you prefer.
>
>The new Gothic block has not, and will not, stop most people from encoding
>Wulfila's Bible with Latin characters. Does it make Latin transliterations of
>Wulfila's Bible "wrong" ? I don't think so.
>
>
>
No, it doesn't make this wrong. But what it does perhaps make wrong is a
text which purports to be in Gothic characters but is in fact Latin
Unicode characters with Gothic glyphs. This is the kind of hack which
lots of people were using for non-Roman scripts only a decade or so ago,
and some still are using, but which Unicode is successfully putting an
end to. On the other hand, Unicode has not and will not attempt to
provide a special set of characters for Black Letter or Suetterlin
script, or for certain ciphers. Which category Phoenician comes into is
debatable.
The problem comes if Unicode speaks with an uncertain voice. If no new
Phoenician script is defined, we all know where we are. If a new one is
defined, users need to go through a painful transition and then
unambiguously make use of the new script. But if Unicode says that we
can do whichever we wish, then there will be confusion for ever, with
texts mixed up between the true Phoenician script and Hebrew fonts with
Phoenician glyphs. That way is madness.
> ...
>
>... Mind you, if a National Body keeps
>resubmitting a dubious proposal, I suspect that WG2 will acquiesce sooner or
>later, whatever misgivings the UTC may have.
>
>
I don't think any National Bodies have any interest in this proposal.
Even the Irish National Body is more than one individual.
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/
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