Re: FW: Web Form: Subj: Against Phoenician

From: Michael Everson (everson@evertype.com)
Date: Fri Apr 30 2004 - 17:33:19 EDT

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    At 15:57 -0400 2004-04-30, jcowan@reutershealth.com wrote:
    >Ego et Michael Everson inter se scripserunt:
    >
    >> >An alternate version of Michael could present a similarly
    >> >technically impeccable proposal for Gaelic script, and then the
    >> >question would be, is it the same as Latin, or is it a separate
    >> >script requiring a separate encoding?
    >>
    > > Except that he wouldn't do that, for reasons which have been
    >stated already.
    >
    >See, the problem is that when you make this sort of apodictic claim,
    >you make them as if you pulled them out of your butt.

    John, I gave the reasons. I have given them several times. What I
    have seen is a whole lot of half-cocked shoot-from-the-hip attacks on
    the very notion of considering Phoenician to be a unique (family of)
    scripts, from people who ask questions showing that they haven't even
    bothered to read the proposal, and who haven't tried to understand
    what was published in 2001 in N2311.

    (I have also seen far more interesting and sober discussions from
    people who have been trying to be more constructive and engaging on
    the matter, which has been more helpful.)

    > > >N2311 is a flat statement of *what*; it gives few clues to *why*.
    >>
    >> As if I didn't know what I was doing.
    >
    >But the judgments you apply must be open to public review.

    Well, when I talk about the historical relationships between the
    scripts and their glyphs and the family tree and encoding nodes of it
    with relation to other encoded and not-yet-encoded scripts, those
    *whys* have been ignored, which is why I said to you, privately, what
    I said to you.

    > > > > Neither does Phoenician descend from Hebrew.
    >> >
    >> >That is a mere matter of terminology.
    >>
    >> THAT is bollocks. It is not at all a mere matter of terminology.
    >
    >What I meant was this: if Unicode had, for God knows what reason, encoded
    >Phoenician first and was now considering Square Hebrew, presumably you
    >would be floating a Hebrew proposal.

    I would indeed.

    >And if I said it could be encoded as an extension of the existing
    >Phoenician encoding, you wouldn't be able to reply in the form above.

    I have already made these replies any number of times. In my abundant
    spare time (after finalizing the Irish ballot comments due on
    2004-05-04, working on N'Ko, producing documents to encode currency
    signs, Coptic additions, Samaritan, etc., I shall try to revise
    N2311. Would that make you happier?

    >It's a matter of convenience that the first time we encoded the 22CWSA,
    >we did so under the name "Hebrew".

    No. It is *your* assertion that this "22CWSA" is "The Thing" that
    Unicode has encoded or should encode. I think that is a gross
    overunification; I do not support it.

    -- 
    Michael Everson * * Everson Typography *  * http://www.evertype.com
    


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