RE: [hebrew] Re: Response to a Proposal to Encode Phoenician in Unicode

From: Jony Rosenne (rosennej@qsm.co.il)
Date: Thu Jun 10 2004 - 10:23:52 CDT

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    Your quotation in no way supports your conclusion. I cannot see in how it
    could be relevant to Unicode. I have reason to believe that the tana'im were
    not familiar with the Unicode character model.

    Jony

    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: unicode-bounce@unicode.org
    > [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org] On Behalf Of Mark E. Shoulson
    > Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 2:51 PM
    > To: Peter Constable
    > Cc: Unicode List
    > Subject: Re: [hebrew] Re: Response to a Proposal to Encode
    > Phoenician in Unicode
    >
    >
    > Peter Constable wrote:
    >
    > >[choosing not to cross-post to all three lists]
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > >>From: hebrew-bounce@unicode.org
    > [mailto:hebrew-bounce@unicode.org] On
    > >>
    > >>
    > >Behalf
    > >
    > >
    > >>Of Mark E. Shoulson
    > >>
    > >>
    > >>The Tanaaim pretty clearly did not view this as a matter of
    > >>
    > >>
    > >font-variants.
    > >
    > >In fairness, Unicode does not encode legal judgments any
    > more than it
    > >does the phonology of any given language. To say that the Tanaaim
    > >considers two groups of letterforms to be distinct seems to me to be
    > >comparable to saying that speakers of English distinguish
    > phonemes /k/
    > >and /s/, and just as we don't use that as an argument to
    > encode both a
    > >"hard" c and a "soft" c, I don't think we can use a legal
    > distinction
    > >as an argument for or against distinct encoding.
    > >
    > >
    > Well, this is a decision distinguishing writing forms, not
    > spoken forms,
    > and after all, writing is what we're talking about.
    >
    > >On the other hand, to the extent that the legal judgment can
    > be seen as
    > >a reflection of perceptions of script identity by an entire society,
    > >that may be relevant.
    > >
    > >
    > Yes. Obviously, I'm not demanding that Unicode support the Tanaitic
    > decision for "legal" reasons or anything, just pointing it out as an
    > indication that they did not consider Paleo-Hebrew to be the
    > same script
    > as Square Hebrew. And that, I think, would also be my answer to Dean
    > Snyder's response. They distinguished between the two scripts to the
    > extent that something written in one was different than the
    > same thing
    > written in the other. Note also that the very same paragraph
    > discusses
    > cases of scrolls written in Aramaic instead of Hebrew (or
    > Hebrew instead
    > of Aramaic, for the Aramaic parts of the Bible). The implication is
    > that they considered the scripts to be different scripts.
    >
    > ~mark
    >
    >
    >
    >



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