Re: East Asian Emphasis Marks (Japanese bouten, etc)

From: fantasai (fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net)
Date: Mon Mar 13 2006 - 23:40:50 CST

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    Asmus Freytag wrote:
    >
    > My recollection is, we picked up two empty slots that were handy, and
    > the BMP was getting full, and there were no better locations in existing
    > (non-compatibility) blocks. The 'related to vertical text' was a nice
    > bonus, but - in fact- distracting, because the other characters violate
    > Unicode's writing direction model, whereas these don't.

    Thanks for the backstory. :)
    >>> In the case of the sesame at least, the shape in printed materials
    >>> closely
    >>> parallels U+3001 IDEOGRAPHIC COMMA, which is provided by the font.
    >>
    >> I would *not* suggest using that.
    >
    > The committee consensus was to discourage precisely that *hack-o-rama*
    > by providing dedicated codes.
    >
    > (The location of the comma and period in the character box is
    > potentially different for each font, but for use as an emphasis mark,
    > you need the 'ink' at a known location, usually centered, otherwise they
    > won't look right).

    The most I'd have suggested is that the application draw its own shape
    similar to what U+3001 typically looks like. As you note, the variable
    position makes it very hard to use the glyph itself.

    > Note, that we might want to note the fact that - by convention -
    > software scales the glyphs for these characters down (just as if they
    > had been regular characters).
    >
    > A./
    >
    > PS: Form the last parenthetical remark, it should be clear that for
    > other symbols, for which existing fonts have glyphs that are always
    > centered, would not require specific codes for emphasis marks.

    What code points are recommended for the filled and hollow dots when
    used as emphasis marks?

    ~fantasai



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