Re: Multiple Directions (was: Re: Coptic/Greek (Re: Phoenician))

From: jcowan@reutershealth.com
Date: Fri May 14 2004 - 10:43:53 CDT

  • Next message: Michael Everson: "Re: Interleaved collation of related scripts"

    Andrew C. West scripsit:

    > > A page that contained both Mongolian and vertical CJK might require
    > > a vertical bidirectional algorithm, but AFAIK that question has not
    > > yet arisen.
    >
    > I'm a little confused by the last sentence.

    So was I.

    > In bilingual Manchu-Chinese texts, which were common during
    > the Manchu Qing dynasty [1644-1911], the text normally follows the Manchu page
    > layout, with vertical lines of Manchu and Chinese interleaved from left to right
    > across the page, so that from a Chinese perspective the book reads backwards.

    Most interesting. What about codex binding? When I see people reading
    Chinese newspapers on the subway, the binding appears to be on the left
    even though the columns of the text are RTL; at least, judging by what
    appears to be the front page.

    (ObJoke: A reporter for the New York Yiddish newspaper, the _Forvits_:
    "Chief? Shpeisel here. I've got a story that'll rip this town wide open.
    Hold the back page!")

    > As I suggested in a recent thread on mixed horizontal/vertical layout, if you
    > did have mixed Top-To-Bottom (TTB) and Bottom-To-Top (BTT) scripts such as
    > Mongolian and Ogham [...] then you
    > could deal with their conflicting directionality as if they were rotated LTR and
    > RTL scripts by means of LRO, RLO and PDF control codes [202C..202D].

    Surely that's not enough: you'd need to implement the full implicit bidi
    algorithm, giving Ogham a nonce bidi type of R. Either that, or run the
    Ogham T2B instead of the normal direction.

    -- 
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