Re: Pau Cin Hau scripts proposal : confusive N3865 and better older N3781

From: Kenneth Whistler (kenw@sybase.com)
Date: Tue Jul 20 2010 - 20:35:25 CDT

  • Next message: Philippe Verdy: "Re: Pau Cin Hau scripts proposal : confusive N3865 and better older N3781"

    Philippe Verdy said:

    > A side note about this preliminary proposal for allocating blocks in
    > the SMP for the two Pau Cin Hau scripts (including one for the large
    > "logographic" script, with 1050 signs):
    >
    > http://std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/n3865.pdf
    >
    > (authored by Anshuman Pandey, in MIT)
    >
    > If the non-logographic Pau Cin Hau script (currently counting 57 signs
    > in this preliminary report that does not give its sources and does not
    > give examples)

    Those are given in the earlier N3781, which itself is cited in
    this short document. N3865 also indicates that "A formal proposal
    for the Pau Cin Hau Syllabary will be submitted shortly." That is
    the notice that a revision of N3781 will be forthcoming, with
    more details. N3781 was clearly labelled "Preliminary", and the
    author has worked extensively on it since February.

    N3865 *only* specifies the sizes of the anticipated repertoires
    to encode, as guidance to the Roadmap Committee for UTC and WG2.

    > is effectively described as containing 21 separate
    > consonnants, 7 separate vowels, and incidentally a few other (9) final
    > consonnants (not different in fact from Greek with its final sigma, or
    > even from Latin with its deprecated final "long s"),

    It is certainly different from Greek with its final sigma, and
    certainly different from Latin with its long s, which is neither
    final nor deprecated.

    > then it is
    > certainly not a "syllabary", and probably not even an "alphasyllabary"
    > ("abugida") unless the some or all of the consonnants carry their own
    > inherent vowel that the vowel signs will modify. The addtional
    > presence of diacritical tone marks will not be decisive for this
    > classification.

    Typologically, the Pau Cin Hau Syllabary is in some intermediate
    space. It has aspects of an alphabet, but also aspects of an abugida
    and of other modified syllabaries. It isn't cut and dry one way
    or the other, any more than classification of Ethiopic or
    Hiragana, for example.

    What is important for the purposes of encoding is that the
    repertoire of characters to encode is quite clear, as shown in
    the examples in N3781 and as laid out by Pandey.

    > ... For me, the N3965 document is
    > totally useless and gives no additional value to what was already in
    > N3781.

    Whatever floats your boat, I guess. If you don't like N3865,
    feel free to ignore it.

    --Ken



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Jul 20 2010 - 20:38:06 CDT