Re: Irish dotless I (was: Languages with letters that always take diacriticals

From: jcowan@reutershealth.com
Date: Thu Mar 18 2004 - 14:46:45 EST

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    brian@gael-image.com scripsit:

    > Thus, the digraph <0062>+<0068> (i.e., "bh") represents the same conceptual
    > object as <1E03>. Note that, if a selection of Irish text is set using one
    > convention or the other, problems with spell checkers will occur UNLESS there
    > is some metadata that indicates the writing system.

    Well, unless your spelling-checker author is bright enough (as is very
    likely) to handle both dot-convention and h-convention spellings.
    These are not intrinsically tied to Uncial vs. Antiqua font styles,
    though; one can write perfectly good Irish in Antiqua style and still
    use dotted consonants.

    > Marion's question--i.e., "how to guarantee continuance, in the specific context
    > of Irish text computing, of the traditional restriction of the Irish diacritic
    > dot (having only one single function in Irish) to the consonants to which it
    > belongs"--implies that "dotless i" and "i" are not the same character because
    > the latter DOESN'T EXIST in the traditional writing system.

    But of course "i" exists in the traditional writing system. It's just that
    its *appearance* lacks a dot. You might as well say that "g" does not exist
    because it has a special shape in Uncial fonts.

    > In the context of a document using traditional Irish orthography (which does
    > not contain "i"), how can "dotless i" be preserved in plain text?

    By *encoding* text with "i", and using Uncial fonts to preserve the characteristic
    appearance.

    -- 
    I am expressing my opinion.  When my            John Cowan
    honorable and gallant friend is called,         jcowan@reutershealth.com
    he will express his opinion.  This is           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
    the process which we call Debate.                   --Winston Churchill
    


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