Re: Emoji: emoticons vs. literacy

From: Asmus Freytag (asmusf@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Mon Jan 12 2009 - 03:20:58 CST

  • Next message: AndrĂ© Szabolcs Szelp: "Re: Emoji-- all or nothing?"

    On 1/11/2009 5:14 PM, Doug Ewell wrote:
    >
    > In http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2009-m01/0077.html I
    > asked for a pointer to a full definition of "compatibility character"
    > in the Unicode 5.x text that would cover "a character that is
    > *completely unrelated* to any other character in the standard but is
    > encoded due to 'interoperability needs.'"
    No need to look very far - just check chapter 2 under compatibility
    character. (You could have easily found out for yourself, since the text
    is online).
    >
    > I have not yet seen one, and as I said at the time, that strongly
    > implies that the existing definitions are being pulled and stretched
    > on an ad-hoc basis to achieve the end goal of encoding this particular
    > set of pictures.
    I couldn't agree with you there. This accusation is rather unfounded.

    A./

    PS: here's a quite from a recent post on another list, where,
    confusingly enough, the same discussion is taking place in parallel.

    > If you read the discussion in chapter two of the Standard, it states
    > that what you are concerned with are a "second narrow sense" of
    > "compatibility character" and goes on to define a term for this
    > restricted category "compatibility decomposable character".
    >
    > Compatibility characters, in the broad sense, are all characters that
    > are not ordinary characters (my term) but were included in the
    > standard because of the 10th design principle, *convertibility*, which
    > is also described in chapter 2.
    >
    > In the current proposal, a large number of characters clearly could
    > qualify as "ordinary" characters. I agree, that these would not be
    > compatibility characters under any definition, and that therefore, it
    > is incorrect to consider the *entire* set of emoji as compatibility
    > characters, even if it is true that the set as a whole is proposed for
    > reasons of convertibility (10th principle).
    >
    > The remainder of the set, however, are compatibility characters as
    > that term has been understood in Unicode from the beginning, even
    > though none, or at most very few, would be "compatibility decomposable
    > characters".



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