From: Peter_Constable@sil.org
Date: Thu Jun 26 2003 - 03:43:07 EDT
Ken Whistler wrote on 06/25/2003 05:29:59 PM:
> > The point is that hiriq before patah is *not*
> > canonically equivalent to patah before hiriq,
>
> This is true.
>
> > except in the erroneous
> > assumption of the Unicode Standard: the order of vowels makes words
sound
> > different and mean different things.
>
> This is not.
Ken, I think you're reading John differently than he intended: the Unicode
character sequences < hiriq, patah > and < patah, hiriq > *are*
canonically equivalent, but the requirements for Biblical Hebrew are that
alternate visual orders would correspond to different vocalizations, and
thus the visual ordering of these does matter semantically, and therefore
the encoded orders should *not* be canonically equivalent.
> The current situation is not optimal for implementations, nor
> does canonically ordered text follow traditional preferences
> for spelling order -- that we can agree on. But I think the
> claims of inadequacy for the representation or rendering
> of Biblical Hebrew text are overblown.
The serious problem is that the writing distinctions that matter cannot
currently be reliably represented, as they are not preserved under
canonical ordering / normalization. This is all just a rehash of
discussions we had on this list back in December, at which time it was
acknowledged that this was the case, and that this was a problem.
- Peter
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Constable
Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA
Tel: +1 972 708 7485
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