Re: [unicode] Re: vertical writing mode of modern Yi?

From: fantasai <fantasai.lists_at_inkedblade.net>
Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:53:51 -0700

On 04/02/2012 04:05 AM, mpsuzuki_at_hiroshima-u.ac.jp wrote:
>
> I appreciate your careful attitude considering the possibility
> that the found short vertical strings are formed under the
> influence of Chinese typography.
>
> So, for further discussion, we need an UCS Yi materials with
> vertical text that has no influence from Chinese typography?
> How to evaluate the influence? If the book has a colophone
> in Chinese, it should be excluded?

It is not the influence of Chinese typography that I'm concerned
with so much (since that probably goes back many hundreds of
years!), but the limitations of the software that was used to
typeset the book and the biases and assumptions of the people
running the software.

If the software is capable of both options, and the people managing
the typesetting process are comfortably literate in Yi and familiar
with its vertical habits in handwritten texts, then we can consider
the results of their work to be correct.

But if the software is only capable of typsetting characters upright
and not sideways, this will obviously be the result regardless of
typographic preference.

Also if the people typesetting the book are familiar with Chinese
but not with Yi, they might assume that these characters, which like
ideographs also fit in fixed-size boxes, should behave the same as
Chinese. This is a reasonable assumption. But it may not be correct.

~fantasai
Received on Tue Apr 03 2012 - 18:56:27 CDT

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