>Well, not exactly. "It's normative" *means* that xyz. But "It's normative"
>*because* the Unicode Standard says so, which in turn is because the
>UTC voted that it be so.
>
>*Why* they voted so may be an interesting historical question in
>particular instances, but it may be beyond the necessities of
>didactic explanation. A little bit like asking why cardinals are
>red and bluebirds are blue, when you get down to it. Maybe there
>actually *is* a real reason (or reasons) for that, but it is probably too
>complicated to figure out, and ultimately besides the point for
>people who just need to be able to distinguish cardinals from bluebirds.
Precisely. If I'm teaching someone about Unicode, I need to give them some
hook on which to hang the normative vs. informative distinction, and the
most accurate answers, viz. because UTC decided so, is a bit too abstract.
Something like
- "it doesn't work the same way in all cases" or
- "it's just additional documentation that has no implications for how
processes should behave" or
- "the issues aren't yet well enough understood to set it all in stone" or
- "there are a bunch of compatibility characters for which the values are
unclear or controversial"
works, though. But I guess the first of these exaplanations can't easily be
used anymore, now that case mappings are normative.
- Peter
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Constable
Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA
Tel: +1 972 708 7485
E-mail: <peter_constable@sil.org>
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