From: Doug Ewell (dewell@adelphia.net)
Date: Wed Feb 23 2005 - 01:10:10 CST
Doug <UList at dfa dash mail dot com> wrote:
> The users of Klingon now get together, and decide they are going to
> use "Private Differentiation Selector 5" for Klingon.
>
> They simply take the codepoints of the Latin letters which
> transliterate Klingon, and pair "PDS 5" with each letter's codepoint.
>
> Now, users with a smart Klingon font get Klingon glyphs. Users who
> lack a smart font with Klingon glyphs automatically get the Latin
> transliteration. We can also do useful things for learners, by
> dynamically switching the specified font with DHTML in a Klingon
> learning Web page.
Neither variation selectors (public or private) not any other mechanism
within Unicode is intended for automatic 1-to-1 transliteration. The
only exception I can think of is a small number of Latin digraphs
intended for transliteration with Cyrillic. These proved to be neither
necessary nor sufficient, and their use is discouraged.
> And there are absolutely no problems with a Korean character showing
> up in the middle of their Web page -- as may currently occur with the
> PUA.
You have exactly the same issues with font dependency using this
approach as you would with the PUA, except that your solution requires
"smart fonts" and the PUA solution doesn't.
> So we now see how a small block of codepoints, with almost zero impact
> on processing, can vastly increase the usefulness of Unicode to real-
> world people.
1. Interspersing a variation selector after EVERY letter does not
constitute "almost zero impact."
2. Variation selectors are for making minor glyphic distinctions within
a character, not for turning Latin into Klingon and vice versa.
3. This mechanism does not "vastly increase the usefulness of Unicode"
to anyone. Mark Shoulson already explained that Klingon-alphabet users
get along just fine with a PUA-based solution.
4. Adopting the style of a professor lecturing his students does not
change any of points 1 through 3.
> 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 codepoints along the main axis, and secondary (and
> allowably ignorable) glyphs and/or meanings get "differentiators"
> along the secondary axis.
Nope.
> It's an extremely useful and efficient system for dealing with things
> -- glyphs or meanings -- that have an identity as a "subset" of a real
> codepoint.
Please read up on the Unicode Standard. Klingon letters are not
"subsets" of Latin letters.
> I'm going to be elaborating on Diaeresis vs. Umlaut further in an
> upcoming post.
You do know this problem has already been solved, right?
-Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/
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