From: John Hudson (tiro@tiro.com)
Date: Fri Apr 30 2004 - 17:01:12 EDT
jcowan@reutershealth.com wrote:
>>On the one hand, the obvious recommendation would be to tell semiticists to
>>continue doing what they have been doing: encoding as Hebrew and displaying
>>with Phoenician-style glyph variants, as this enables textual analysis and
>>comparison with a larger body of Hebrew text in which such experts are
>>likely to be interested.
> To which Michael will likely reply that encoding Phoenician will not prevent
> this behavior.
And he will be right.
While I sympathise with the view that the can be legitimately viewed 22CWSAs as a single
script -- *all* categorisations being arbitrary, after all --, and recognise that there
are very good reasons for this view in some contexts, I do not oppose on principle the
distinction of the ancient North Semitic script from 'modern' Hebrew in the context of
Unicode. Mind you, I also wouldn't be at all fussed if your view were to prevail and the
proposal were dropped, however unlikely this now seems.
My concern is only with what the standard ends up saying about this script, and whether it
generates confusion among scholars who are for legitimate reasons not used to considering
-- let alone working with -- Hebrew and the common North Semitic script as distinct.
John Hudson
-- Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com Vancouver, BC tiro@tiro.com I often play against man, God says, but it is he who wants to lose, the idiot, and it is I who want him to win. And I succeed sometimes In making him win. - Charles Peguy
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