Re: Phoenician

From: Kenneth Whistler (kenw@sybase.com)
Date: Fri May 07 2004 - 17:44:44 CDT


Elaine asked:

> Dear John Cowan:
>
> > Instead, the alefs will sort together, the bets will
> > sort together, and so on.
> > Only if two words are identical in everything but
> > script will the Square
> > come first and the P. second (or the other way
> > about, depending on how
> > the default collation rules are set up).
>
> So could you do this with all Semitic/Afroasiatic
> languages which have something like alef and beth?

Yes.

> Is
> there a numeric limit?

In principle, no.

In practice, yes.

However, in practice, the principled limit on the practice
far exceeds the practical need. ;-)

If there are 2 Semitic/Afroasiatic scripts encoded, or
eventually 4 (or 9), then all the alefs and bets *could*,
in principle, be weighted together, which would impact both
searching and sorting. If 97,621 Semitic/Afroasiatic scripts
were encoded, then chances are most actual implementations
of this would blow up on some numerical limit.

> Or if the Egyptian
> biconsonantal etc. stuff is harder to process, is that
> a limitation?

No. You just weight the biconsonants as units or the
units as having two weights, depending on what effect you
are trying to get for the search and/or sort.

--Ken

>
> Elaine



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