From: Michael Everson (everson@evertype.com)
Date: Thu Apr 03 2008 - 06:35:52 CST
At 14:32 +0400 2008-04-03, abysta@yandex.ru wrote:
>02.04.08, 18:45, "Michael Everson" <everson@evertype.com>:
>> They are encoded separately because they are different glyph elements
>> in Cyrillic. If it really is the case that a new letter is being used
>> in Abkhaz, then a new letter should be encoded.
>
>Encoding a new letter takes about 2 years! In 2 years the sphere of
>use of Unicode fonts in Abkhazia will by much wider and shifting to
>a new code for PE WITH DESCENDER will be painful.
>In Abkhaz middle hooks and descenders are glyph variations (hooks
>are historic, descenders are modern).
In the UCS, Cyrillic middle hooks and descenders are not glyph variants.
If you have had an orthography reform in Abkhaz then you should grasp
the nettle and encode a new character, because older orthography uses
different letters from newer orthography.
In Giljarevskij and Grivnin 1964, Abkhaz is shown clearly writing with:
0494/0495 GHE WITH MIDDLE HOOK (not 04F6/04F7 GHE WITH DESCENDER)
049A/049B KA WITH DESCENDER (not 04C3/04C4 KA WITH HOOK)
04A6/04A7 PE WITH MIDDLE HOOK
04AC/04AD TE WITH DESCENDER (not A68A/A68B TE WITH MIDDLE HOOK)
04B2/04B3 HA WITH DESCENDER (not 04FC/04FD HA WITH HOOK)
04B4/04B5 LIGATURE TE TSE
04B6/04B7 CHE WITH DESCENDER
The Library of Congress Romanization tables list a 1954 orthography
for Abkhaz which has:
0494/0495 GHE WITH MIDDLE HOOK
04C3/04C4 KA WITH HOOK
04A6/04A7 PE WITH MIDDLE HOOK
A68A/A68B TE WITH MIDDLE HOOK
04FC/04FD HA WITH HOOK
04B4/04B5 LIGATURE TE TSE
04B6/04B7 CHE WITH DESCENDER
If PE WITH DESCENDER is the lastest and last normalization of the
HOOK/DESCENDER alternation, then we ought to encode this letter and
be done with it.
I would like to see a modern children's primer, and I would like to
see a discussion of the orthographic reform, if that were possible.
-- Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com
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