RE: Query for Validity of Thai Sequence

From: Peter Constable (petercon@microsoft.com)
Date: Sat Feb 10 2007 - 10:48:44 CST

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    Actually, I think actual adaptation of a script for use in other languages has less to do with its adaptability and more to do with things like prestige or regional importance by virtue of its use for some major language(s). E.g. Arabic script wasn't adopted for writing Turkish because the script was particularly adaptable for that language.

    Peter

    -----Original Message-----
    From: unicode-bounce@unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org] On Behalf Of John Hudson
    Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 10:06 AM
    To: Eric Muller
    Cc: Lokesh Joshi; Richard Wordingham; unicode@unicode.org
    Subject: Re: Query for Validity of Thai Sequence

    Eric Muller wrote:

    >> Successful writing systems tend to get adapted for multiple languages,

    > The term "successful writing systems" makes me nervous, especially with
    > the "tend to get adapted" part. Unless you define "successful" by "get
    > adapted" (in which case you have a tautology), the value judgment is at
    > best dubious. And anyway, your argument works equally well without
    > "Successful", so why go there?

    That's an entirely fair comment. I was writing quickly, but I suppose I was thinking of
    'successful' in terms of demonstrated adaptability. Thinking of a script like Thai: this
    is a writing system that has already been adapted to a number of minority languages, ergo
    'successful' in this sense, and it is reasonable to think that it might be adapted to
    others. In any case, the basic point is that one shouldn't make assumptions about how
    characters will be used in such adaptations.

    JH

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