From: Alexander Kh. (alexkh@writeme.com)
Date: Fri May 13 2005 - 06:27:24 CDT
Greetings!
Please, tell me, where do I apply in order to request some
minor modifications to a recently proposed standard?
Here is the document in concern by Michael Everson:
http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2610r.pdf
I am very happy to see that glagoliza is being added to Unicode,
since I have been learning that script in Russia. Now it is clear
that the script was not invented by a Greek monk: does it make sense
to transliterate Bible for illiterate people who the Slavs supposedly
were? That does not make sense to me. That was a convenient tale
Christians invented to justify their presence in "Pagan" lands, and that
may be quite believable regarding Cyrillic script, for it at least looks
like Greek. However, Glagolitic script does not even look like Greek, so
I see no reason even considering their resemblance. And hence, the
ordering of letters should not be taken from Greek ordering.
This is the ordering of all 45 letters as they teach in Seminary:
(here I replace ero' with o', meaning short o, and use ' for er',
which stands for short e - this is more meaningful although still ugly)
1.Azo'(1), 2.Bouki(2), 3.Viedie(3), 4.Glagoli(4), 5.Dobro(5),
6.Est'(6), 7.Zhiviete(7), 8.Dzielo(8), 9.Zemlya(9),
10.Init'(10), 11.Izhei(10), 12.Izhe(20), 13.Derv'(30),
14.Kako(40), 15.Ludie(50), 16.Mislite(60), 17.Nash'(70),
18.Ono'(80), 19.Pokoi(90), 20.Retsi(100), 21.Slovo(200),
22.Tverdo(300), 23.Uko'(400), 24.Ouko'(400), 25.Ferto'(500),
26.Hieno'(600), 27.Oto'(700), 28.Pie(800), 29.Tsi(900),
30.Chr'v'(1000), 31.Sha, 32.Shta(800), 33.Ero', 34.Eri, 35.Er',
36.Yat', 37.Ho'lmo', 38.Yuso', 39.Yus, 40.Yus big, 41.Edo,
42.Odo, 43.Yesm, 44.Fita, 45.Izhitsa
1.One letter is missing: it is letter Uk that looks like this:
O_
O
(two overlapping circles one on top of another with a stick coming
from the middle to the right side of the letter).
The one that is called Uku in the script is actually Ouko'
2.Another major concern: variants of the glyphs. There are not
many of them so why not include them into the standard? Major
font makers include them anyway, so why should they stay in an
"illegal" status? (I am not talking about round and angled which
are really just variants of the whole script, not individual letters).
Here is one example of font maker:
http://www.hermessoft.com/newproject/packages/glagolitic.html
Notice their support of letter k that is also written as a continuous
stroke (continuous version is the only one mentioned in the Unicode).
The difference is that letter Kako means "how" and the one with missing
part has a function of question connotation in the sentence, replacing
need of a question mark which was not there originally.
The variants I would like to have are the following:
Az - 2 variants,
Dzelo - 2 variants
missing letter Init' (i with double dots in Cyrillic)
Derv - 3 variants
Kako - 2 variants
Ludie - 3 variants
Mislite - 2 variants
missing letter Ouk
Pe - 2 variants
Eri - 4 variants
Ere - 2 variants
Yus - 2 variants
Yu - 2 variants
3. So-called "Spidery Ha" is called Ho'lmo'
4. Everson's letter i is actually "izhe", it's numeric value is 20;
5. Everson's letter INITIAL IZHE is actually "init", numeric value 10;
6. There are more subtle corrections I would like to propose, but they
require some graphical media.
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