Re: Proposal to encode three combining diacritical marks for Low German dialect writing

From: Michael Everson (everson@evertype.com)
Date: Fri Jan 18 2008 - 16:29:38 CST

  • Next message: James Kass: "Re: Proposal to encode three combining diacritical marks for Low German dialect writing"

    At 22:59 +0100 2008-01-18, Karl Pentzlin wrote:
    >\ME> I could argue for the acceptance of the COMBINING TRIPLE BREVE BELOW,
    >ME> but the other two characters are in my opinion no different from
    >ME> COMBINING OGONEK and COMBINING VERTICAL LINE BELOW.
    >
    >Regarding the proposed COMBINING STRAIGHT RIGHT-POINTING HOOK BELOW
    >and its similarity to the existing U+0238 COMBINING OGONEK, the
    >similarity is only very superficial.

    I disagree. The ogonek, while used in Polish and Lithuanian and
    Navajo, has been widely used in Germanic linguistics, for instance in
    Old Norse.

    >The proposed character has a straight vertical stem and attaches to
    >the center or something left of the center of its base character.
    >Thus, it has the general shape of a Greek small iota.

    In some fonts. In what way does it contrast with an ogonek, as for
    instance, used in Old Norse?

    >On the other side, the stem of the ogonek is slanted or bent to the
    >upper right, and attaches to the right of its base character.
    >(see attacted picture.)

    I see. I think this is an artefact of a particular font, rather than
    a principled difference from the ogonek.

    >These characters are at least as different as U+A722 LATIN CAPITAL
    >LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL ALEF and U+A76A LATIN CAPITAL LETTER ET (both
    >from FPDAM3, i.e. Unicode 5.1), which are also superficially similar,
    >and which will hardly appear side by side in a "real life" text
    >document.

    Actually those two letters have ENTIRELY different and known origins.
    The former is two Greek spiriti on atop the other, an the latter is a
    z-like squiggle from medieval manuscripts. (Sorry. You're wrong
    there.)

    You know I tend toward splitting rather than lumping, Karl, but I
    don't see that you have made a case here for the unsuitability of the
    ogonek for this character. Now it is true that in Germanic
    linguistics the ogonek is usually used for nasalization. Have you
    considered U+031C COMBINING LEFT HALF RING BELOW (which is used for
    open vowels) or indeed U+0345 COMBINING GREEK YPOGEGRAMMENI?

    >Thus it would have been no problem to encode these as a
    >single character *LATIN CAPITAL LETTER THREE-LIKE THINGIE, based on
    >their appearance alone.

    No, as I said, that would be formally incorrect.

    >The proposed hook has a history (it is used by its community at least
    >since the first half of the 20th century; I am still trying to collect
    >scans of that era for inclusion in my proposal). Thus, it has an
    >identity as a character (as U+A722 and U+A76A have).

    I have Lepsius here. Have you looked at that?

    >The proposed COMBINING LONG VERTICAL LINE BELOW is admittedly a border
    >case, although it is not pure obvious to equate it with the existing
    >U+0329 COMBINING VERTICAL LINE BELOW. It also may have an identity
    >as a character, rather than being a glyph variant only.

    I can't see how.

    -- 
    Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com
    


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