From: jcowan@reutershealth.com
Date: Thu Mar 18 2004 - 17:33:53 EST
brian@gael-image.com scripsit:
> In this context, and if it's true that a spell checker could, in theory, be
> programmed to handle parallel encoding conventions, then why shouldn't Irish
> language "traditionalists" encode the i with a LATIN SMALL LETTER DOTLESS I
> such as <0131>?
It could be done, yes, but there's no *point* to it. Similarly,
the Uncial-style "g" will soon be encoded in Unicode for the sake of
plain-text documents that distinguish between the two kinds of "g"
(or the three kinds, as we already have the IPA-style "g" with the
single hook). That doesn't mean that it makes sense to use this new
character in writing Irish using an Uncial font.
The shape of a or g, or the presence or absence of a dot over i, is
a font distinction that Unicode doesn't need to represent. When the
distinction becomes a semantic one, as in IPA or Old English/Middle
English dictionaries or Turkic text respectively, then it makes sense to
introduce and use additional characters. Otherwise not. Irish has in fact
only one a, g, and i, and should use the regular Basic Latin versions
of these.
You might say, then why not introduce a "seimhiu" character whose glyphic
representation is either h-following or dot-above? Primarily for Unicode
structural reasons: Unicode needs to say a character is either combining or
not.
-- John Cowan www.reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan jcowan@reutershealth.com 'Tis the Linux rebellion / Let coders take their place, The Linux-nationale / Shall Microsoft outpace, We can write better programs / Our CPUs won't stall, So raise the penguin banner of / The Linux-nationale.
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