From: saqqara (saqqara@csi.com)
Date: Sun May 23 2004 - 11:14:33 CDT
Elaine, it would be interesting to read Prof. Kaufman's opinion of why
Phoenician should not be regarded as a distinct script (family). Can he be
persuaded to publish his reasoning for UTC to consider?
However despite the discussion of current techniques and preferences among
scholars, the ONLY question here is whether 'Phoenician' counts as a
distinct script as far as Unicode principles are concerned. If the proposal
on the table is accurate and silence seems to imply it is
If it does and is then standardise it as such and we can move on to the far
more interesting and challenging question of how better to use computers to
work with multilingual texts and source materials in ancient scripts and
languages.
For Unicode, implementation of Phoenician as a font switch for Hebrew as an
alternative proposal fails at the first hurdle if, as is claimed by some
here, modern Hebrew readers do not regard Phoenician fonts as valid Hebrew
fonts (in the sense that an English/Latin reader would acknowledge older
cursive and type styles as valid and readable, if sometimes odd and
unfamiliar). At least thats how I read the arguments about unification. So
this is an important issue to address in a counter-proposal, although not
the only one.
Bob Richmond
Saqqara Technology
From: "E. Keown" Saturday, May 22, 2004 11:14 PM
> Elaine Keown
> Tucson
>
> Dear James Kass:
>
> > His posting as it appeared on the Unicode list was
> > offensive. I thought
> > Michael Kaplan did a fine job of responding to it.
>
> The posting on the Unicode list IS ENTIRELY MY
> FAULT....I copied Prof. Kaufman's response off the ANE
> list and (really stupidly) put it onto the Unicode
> list....
>
> Michael Kaplan pointed out to me that I really
> shouldn't have done that.....he's right...I'm far too
> impulsive, and I have a bad temper.
>
> Prof. Kaufman chose to forgive me---really
> magnanimous, I thought--and wrote me back re stuff.
>
> I got hysterical--or perhaps I should say, continued
> to be hysterical--because I thought no one on the
> Unicode list was listening (even to Dean Snyder, a
> very serious expert) and I thought maybe you all would
> listen to Kaufman....he does have the 2nd-largest
> Semitic database in the world at this point.
>
> it's not long now till June 15, Markham.....
> Elaine
>
>
>
>
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