From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Sun Mar 06 2005 - 19:26:33 CST
On 07/03/2005 00:43, Doug Ewell wrote:
>"vlad" <emperor dot vlad at gmail dot com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>Couldn't the automatic ligation of fi be prevented in Turkish/Azeri by
>>encoding their dotted i as i + COMBINING DOT ABOVE, rather than i
>>alone?
>>
>>
>
>It could, but that's not what the character is.
>
>
>
It could, but that would not change the terabytes of data in Turkish and
Azerbaijani already on the web and in various databases, nor the habits
and implementations of millions of Turkish and Azerbaijani computer
users. Even if a change was made, there is no way that Turks and
Azerbaijanis could be educated to consistently use i + COMBINING DOT
ABOVE when writing their own languages but simple i when writing other
languages, when the forms are identical. So any attempt to change
behaviour now would lead to disastrous confusion.
The only safe way ahead is to apply the ligature only when text is
clearly marked up (as for example it would be in MS Word) as in a
language other than Turkish or Azerbaijani, or when ZWJ is used to
promote the ligature.
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/ -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.6.2 - Release Date: 04/03/2005
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