Re: Latin Script

From: vanisaac@boil.afraid.org
Date: Mon Jun 14 2010 - 15:43:18 CDT

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    From: Tulasi <tulasird@gmail.com>

    > Thanks for the input Edward!
    > Yep, I shell explore time-chronology as well.
    >
    > Edward -> Close, but not quite. Consider LATIN SMALL LETTER PHI (ɸ).

    Amazingly, I consider Latin Small Letter Phi to be a part of the Latin script. Why?: in my typographic life, I would design it differently from Greek small Letter Phi. The Greek phi needs to work with other Greek letters. The Latin phi needs to work in phonetic notation, which is Latin letters; it needs to have more contrast with Latin Small Letter Q than the Greek phi, so it has an ascender. As a Classicist, a Greek phi with an ascender interrupts the flow of text, unless in a slant font, so it is designed quite differently from Latin Small Letter Phi. It's just like Cyrillic Dze and Sha, which have been borrowed from Latin and Coptic, are designed and act like Cyrillic letters.

    > Mark gave a new link of letter/symbol that has LATIN (thanks Mark!):
    > Mark -> http://unicode.org/cldr/utility/list-unicodeset.jsp?a=[:script=Latn:]&g=age
    >
    > Now, how many letters/symbols in that link are like "LATIN SMALL
    > LETTER PHI (ɸ)", i.e., not from Latin-script?

    there's really no way to make any sort of distinction like that. Do you want to consider Y and Z as not Latin letters, because they were borrowed from Greek, not adapted from Etruscan? How about Þ and Wynn? They are from Runic. Should U+019B, Latin Small Letter Lambda with Stroke be considered not Latin, even though it is not found in any other script? There are a number of these, and the only classification that is not completely arbitrary is to consider them ALL to be part of the Latin script, including Latin Small Letter Phi.

    > Also, how do I find the list of letters/symbols that do not have LATIN
    > in names but from Latin-script?

    The Spacing Modfier Letters and Combining Diacritical Marks may also need to be included for a really comprehensive list, and these are contained in their own blocks, Phonetic Extensions, and Phonetic Extensions Supplement. Then the question is whether you should include Devanagari Om. What about Currency signs? Punctuation? Should it simply be the union of Script=common and Script=Latin? Script=common includes puntucation from all languages, so you end up with Dandas and Arabic commas, is that right? The question really only makes sense if it has context: for what purpose are you defining something as Latin script?

    > Tulasi

    Van



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