From: UList@dfa-mail.com
Date: Tue Feb 22 2005 - 05:31:12 CST
Neil Harris wrote:
> >The users of Klingon now get together, and decide they are going to use
> >"Private Differentiation Selector 5" for Klingon.
> >What we have done is turn Unicode from a "one dimensional array" into a "two
> >dimensional array". The primary (and defaultable) glyphs and meanings get real
> [* head explodes *]
>
> -- Neil
Is that from a Klingon disruptor -- or should I restate the idea for people
not familiar with arrays :)
We take all the real Unicode codepoints, and line them up in one line. Imagine
a long line of Scrabble squares.
Something really basic gets assigned a codepoint. Like a combining mark that
looks like "Two Dots Above".
But there are some variations of that, that might have a slightly different
appearance, or a specific meaning.
So we now branch out from one of the codepoints, adding Scrabble squares going
off at a right angle to the side.
We specify that we're doing that, by using the codepoint for "Two Dots Above",
plus another special codepoint, that just means "variation #1", or "variation
#2", etc.
In this case, two things we want to put on our branch, are the specific
meaning and look of Diaeresis, and of Umlaut.
The beauty of it is, that if anyone forgets to use one of the "variation"
codepoints, or any system ignores a "variation" codepoint that has been used,
the result is just the main "Two Dots Above" codepoint -- which is an
acceptable fallback.
I'm going to be elaborating on Diaeresis vs. Umlaut further in an upcoming post.
Doug
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