At 15:16 12/2/2001, juuichiketajin@ranmamail.com wrote:
>Then why not unify DIGIT THREE with HAN DIGIT THREE?
I don't know enough about the Han encoding to answer that. Because they are
distinguished in existing character sets? Because someone has a need to
distinguish them in plain text?
I'm not saying that the Swedish och sign should automatically be unified
with the ampersand. I'm simply pointing out that, as described to date on
this list, it is not clear that this sign needs to be separately encoded.
We know that is can be treated as a language-specific glyph variant because
Swedish readers apparently accept both forms to means exactly the same
thing. Whether such treatment is sufficient depends on whether there is
also need to distinguish the two forms, and to do so in plain text. I think
Michael Everson made a strong case for separate encoding of the Tironian et
sign, and I think a similarly strong case would need to be made for
separately encoding the Swedish och sign.
I'm perfectly happy to include the och sign in my fonts, whether it is
encoded or not, and to provide mechanisms to access the glyph. At the
moment, though, I don't think it is clear whether it is best for this sign
to be encoded or not. What might be the impact on Swedish keyboard drivers?
Is the intention that a new och sign character should replace the ampersand
character in Swedish text processing, or should both be used? What is the
impact on existing documents?
John Hudson
Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com
Vancouver, BC tiro@tiro.com
... es ist ein unwiederbringliches Bild der Vergangenheit,
das mit jeder Gegenwart zu verschwinden droht, die sich
nicht in ihm gemeint erkannte.
... every image of the past that is not recognized by the
present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear
irretrievably.
Walter Benjamin
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