From: Mark E. Shoulson (mark@kli.org)
Date: Wed Mar 16 2005 - 09:37:17 CST
Peter Kirk wrote:
> On 15/03/2005 21:28, Michael Everson wrote:
>
>> At 13:16 -0800 2005-03-15, Peter Constable wrote:
>>
>>> U+048A CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER SHORT I WITH TAIL
>>
>>
>>
>> The Cyrillic short thingy isn't a combining character. And it's not a
>> breve. (You knew this, but others mightn't.)
>
>
> The only problem with that is that there is no CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER
> I WITH TAIL, because CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER I is one of the few
> Cyrillic letters which is not modified with a tail - except when
> combined with a breve. So, what we have is a precomposed character
> which consists of an existing combining mark combined with a base
> character which is used only with the combining mark. I wonder if this
> is a unique situation? I think not, because there is an Arabic chair
> character which is only used with a hamza. And that situation is also
> problematic. Also I think U+0640 ARABIC TATWEEL is supposed to be used
> only with combining marks. Anything else? In pointed Hebrew this is
> true of the letter shin, but this is used without combining marks in
> unpointed Hebrew.
>
Or even in fully-pointed texts in the specific case of the name Issachar
יִשָּׂשכָר, according to the (pretty much universally-accepted) Ben-Asher
pointing (Ben-Naftali has יִשְׁשָׂכָר). I've been reading up lately on other
traditions, etc.
The situation you point out reminds me of Ladusaw & Pullam's "heng"
character, which has no serious meaning or use, but is listed mainly to
give the "hooktop heng" letter, ɧ U+0267 LATIN SMALL LETTER HENG WITH
HOOK, a name. Apparently the same logic is being applied by Unicode,
since U+0267, by its name, would appear to be a letter Heng with a hook,
but nowhere do we find a letter Heng.
~mark
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