Re: The display of *kholam* on PCs

From: John Hudson (tiro@tiro.com)
Date: Wed Mar 05 2003 - 14:08:00 EST

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    At 07:57 AM 3/5/2003, Dean Snyder wrote:

    >About the only "unusual" orthographic phenomenon I can think of related
    >to KHOLEM is that when it occurs after SIN it "shares the same dot" with SIN.

    Not always. I have not done a close analysis of manuscript sources, but I
    wouldn't be surprised to find that this practice is largely due to
    technical limitations in older typesetting systems and/or the conventions
    of particular script styles. The question was raised recently during our
    development of a set of fonts for biblical scholarship: I told the clients
    they had a choice of whether to combine the holam and sin dots or to have
    them separate. The clear preference was to have them separate. This was
    possible because, following the convention of the sephardic style on which
    the new font is based, the sin and shin dots do not sit at the *extreme*
    left and right of the shin letter, so there is a little extra space into
    which to insert a holam. This would be more difficult in an ashkenazic
    style, and particularly difficult in older typesetting systems that would
    not allow dynamic adjustment of holam relative to other marks.

    John Hudson

    Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com
    Vancouver, BC tiro@tiro.com

    It is necessary that by all means and cunning,
    the cursed owners of books should be persuaded
    to make them available to us, either by argument
    or by force. - Michael Apostolis, 1467



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