From: Christopher Fynn (cfynn@gmx.net)
Date: Sun Feb 27 2005 - 14:09:14 CST
Doug
Instead of suggesting changes to Unicode, OpenType & Uniscribe which are
unlikely to be accepted - and, even if they were, would probably take years
for Microsoft to enable in Uniscribe - why not use Graphite
<http:/graphite.sil.org/> if you want to do this sort of thing?
One of it's principal purposes is to allow support for complex
scripts unlikely to be supported by main stream systems.
You could at least use Graphite to build a proof of concept before
suggesting such changes
UList@dfa-mail.com wrote:
> Hello,
>
> What is the reaction to using E0000 language tags for Klingon and Phoenician.
>
> Klingon: use Latin transliteration text, plus a smart font to swap in
Klingon
> glyphs when the E0000 "Klingon" language tags are encountered.
> Phoenician: use Hebrew transliteration text plus a smart font to swap in
> Phoenician glyphs when the E0000 "Phoenician" language tags are encountered.
If you've been following the Unicode list for any length of time, you'd know
that Phoenician/Hebrew beaten to death here a while back and no one wants to
reopen it.
Anyway language tags are not there to be used as some kind of Variation
selector - they more or less serve the same purpose as "lang=xx" tags
in HTML.
> I know you love language tags!
> As far as I've been informed, only a limited list of "official"
> Microsoft-defined normal language tags can be recognized by an OpenType font.
> But the OT font should be able to recognize an E0000 codepoint string (as
just
> codeponts) and do "context" glyph swapping [*].
> While these two languages might get added to the Microsoft list, I'm thinking
> of extending this principal to my beloved archaic Greek alphabets -- and the
> entire spectrum of NW Semitic scripts.... and after base cuneiform codepoint
> get added, variants for every localized cuneiform style .... mmmmm. Yummy.
> I can even justify putting Klingon on the Latin codepoints:
So can everyone else, which is one reason Klingon script is not encoded.
> Just draw a chart that shows Latin letters slowly *morphing*
> into Klingon glyphs.
There is of course a documented mapping of Klingon to PUA codepoints
in the ConScript registry: http://www.evertype.com/standards/csur/klingon.html
lots of other scripts are there too
<http://www.evertype.com/standards/csur/>
You could create a similar registry of PUA codepoints for archaic Greek
& Cuneiform variants if someone hasn't done so already.
> Claim Klingon glyphs are highly stylized, ornamental Latin letters.
If you consider that your "archaic Greek alphabets" are just variant forms
of Greek script just use a font change like is done for blackletter and
roman variants of Latin script and put suitable contextual rules in each font.
> Knew you'd like that.
No
> Doug
>
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