Re: kurdish sorani

From: John Hudson (john@tiro.ca)
Date: Thu Aug 31 2006 - 12:32:47 CDT


Philippe Verdy wrote:

> There's a clear need for encoding the semantic in the plain-text itself, and if this requires adding more characters or format controls in the stream, this must be documented by Unicode, and then solutions deployed in a recommandation for font vendors, so that these will be part of the default profile of fonts (even if there remains "language system"-specific features, to disable some parts of these additions.

Well then that's not an OpenType issue, its a Unicode issue. Character encoding is
Unicode's job. OpenType developers implement Unicode in fonts. We'll work with whatever
characters we're given. And if a Chinese standards body specified U+06BE for Uighur h,
then that's what we'll implement. And there will be caveats that not every typeface and
font in the world will implement U+06BE shaping in a way that is appropriate for Uighur,
because the shaping of U+06BE is determined relative to script style not language. Font
developers trying to support the widest number of languages with a font are advised to
think carefully about the style of type used and also about the default shaping for each
character. But since the majority of font development is focused on particular language
support, or support for a small range of languages, and providing ideal shaping for those
languages rather than the necessary compromises of trying to support every language
written in a given script or supporting multiple scripts.

John Hudson

-- 
Tiro Typeworks        www.tiro.com
Vancouver, BC         john@tiro.ca
I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget
that words are the daughters of earth, and that things
are the sons of heaven.  - Samuel Johnson


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