Re: Berber/Tifinagh (was: Swahili & Banthu)

From: Mark E. Shoulson (mark@kli.org)
Date: Mon Nov 10 2003 - 22:42:27 EST

  • Next message: John Jenkins: "Re: Berber/Tifinagh (was: Swahili & Banthu)"

    Kenneth Whistler wrote:

    >Philippe Verdy wrote:
    >
    >
    >
    >>You seem to forget that Tifinagh is not a unified script, but a set of
    >>separate
    >>scripts where the same glyphs are used with distinct semantic functions.
    >>
    >>
    >
    >I think Philippe is running off the rails here.
    >
    >Tifinagh is a script. It comes in a number of local varieties,
    >adapted to different languages and with local variations in
    >glyph preferences. It will be encoded as a *single* script in
    >Unicode, since encoding all the local orthographic varieties
    >as distinct scripts would really not be a service to anyone
    >who wants this script encoded for enabling IT processing of
    >Berber textual data.
    >
    Compare tengwar; much the same situation. I realize tengwar isn't yet
    encoded, but I think there's no question of how it should be encoded, if
    it is.

    >>when they already have the merit of covering the whole abstract
    >>character set covered by all scripts in the Tifinagh family?
    >>
    >>
    >
    >You could say the same about any script whatsoever, as I
    >suspect that *every* script in Unicode has been transliterated
    >into the Latin script at one point or another. Why not just
    >map them *all* to Latin and save the messy task of having to
    >deal with data represented in its own script? (<== That was
    >a rhetorical question, in case it wasn't obvious to all readers.)
    >
    >
    All of Unicode is just a cypher to strings of [0123456789ABCDEF],
    really. Or to strings from [01], come to that.

    ~mark



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