From: Michael Everson (everson@evertype.com)
Date: Mon Apr 04 2005 - 03:36:39 CST
At 19:45 -0400 2005-04-03, Patrick Andries wrote:
>There could be one if unknown (to us as yet) implosive sindhi
>characters may be discovered later.
This is baseless theoretical speculation. What, you think that Sindhi
speakers have an implosive but just didn't bother to put it in their
alphabet yet?
>It is not sufficient to say "for simplicity's sake" I have encoded 4
>characters rather than a single mark
It most certainly is.
>it is worthwhile analysing other alternatives and show why they are
>unlikely to help (only one extra implosive possible according to IPA
>notations) and why there are more complicated (usually 1 is simpler
>than 4 but maybe not here).
No, Patrick. Writing character encoding proposals is a technical
exercise. It is not a theoretical or academic exercise. It is not
necessary for me to explore every possible permutation of competing
encoding choices, and to refute all the ones that I don't choose. It
is only necessary for me to make a sufficient case for encoding.
"Simplicity's sake" is *certainly* a valid criterion for making an
encoding choice.
These considerations are implicit in the proposal anyway. It is clear
that the mark of implosivity and the ANUDATTA (can) look very much
the same, but behave very differently. They behave differently (i) in
relation to other combining marks (the matras) and (ii) in that the
mark of implosivity graphically combines with the base character. It
is obvious that the simplest thing to do is to recognize the Sindhi
implosives as unique base-letters and encode them. The data leads
directly to that conclusion.
-- Michael Everson * * Everson Typography * * http://www.evertype.com
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