Re: Combining latin small letters with diacritics

On 3/5/2012 11:56 AM, Philippe Verdy wrote:
> Note that the first alternative is the one used in the DAM for
> encoding a separate COMBINING LATIN SMALL LETTER A/O/U WITH DIAERESIS

Correct.

>
> But the document cited by Denis gives a much more productive way that
> allows stacking any kind of letters with its diacritics. There won't
> be enough space in the BMP for such Latin supplements.

If such generic use occurs, then it basically requires rich text or
other markup.
That would represent an introduction of general mechanisms comparable to
techniques
used in mathematics. But in the cited document I don't actually see any
usage that
would be problematical. Do you?

The characters in the DAM are a particular set used in German
dialectology, and
do not require the introduction of generic mechanisms.

>
> The alternative could be to encode only a single combining diacritic
> (or format control) meaning "Stack the next grapheme cluster above the
> previous one", to override the normal side-by-side presentation of
> successive grapheme clusters. and eventually a similar special
> diacritic or control to create a stack below.

That would be another way of sneaking a glyph description language into the
character encoding. I don't think it should happen.

--Ken
Received on Mon Mar 05 2012 - 14:34:52 CST