Re: Level of Unicode support required for various languages

From: James Kass (thunder-bird@earthlink.net)
Date: Wed Oct 24 2007 - 12:38:28 CDT

  • Next message: Lorna_Priest@sil.org: "Re: Level of Unicode support required for various languages"

    Timothy Armes wrote,

    > 1) How many and which languages absolutely require the use
    > of combinging marks due to the fact there the pre-composed
    > glyphs aren't sufficient?

    This question isn't answerable, in my opinion. Somebody would
    have to come up with a firm definition of "language", for
    starters. Where is the line drawn between languages/dialects?
    It's like asking how many languages are there? There are a
    lot of Latin-based writing systems which need combining marks.

    > 2) How many and which languages absolutely require the use
    > of variant selectors?

    For writing systems, Mongolian and Phags-pa require the use
    of variation selector characters.

    > 3) How many and which languages absolutely require the use
    > of variant glyphs?

    Other than Mongolian and Phags-pa, and discounting positional
    variants, no writing system requires the use of variant glyphs
    in plain-text.

    If positional variants are not discounted, the Latin script as
    used for English requires positional/contextual variants when
    written cursively.

    Best regards,

    James Kass



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