From: Phillips, Addison (addison@amazon.com)
Date: Thu Jan 22 2009 - 12:40:09 CST
“arcane”
“unusual”
“rare”
“uncommon”
“limited usage”
“specialized”
“archaic”
“not customary”
One of the problems is that your collection(s) are sometimes in “modern” usage in one context or another… just not common usage in its given script for most language(s) written in that script. All of the terms you’re considering seem to have an implied pejorative even if none is actually intended.
Addison Phillips
Globalization Architect -- Lab126
Internationalization is not a feature.
It is an architecture.
From: unicode-bounce@unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org] On Behalf Of Mark Davis
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 9:27 AM
To: Asmus Freytag
Cc: Aiet Kolkhi; Matitiahu Allouche; Unicode; UTC; unicore-bounce@unicode.org
Subject: Re: Obsolete characters
I tried 'obsolete', but that doesn't work either. What we need is a pithy term or phrase for "not in customary modern use", so if you can think of one.... "Nonmodern"? (ugg)
Mark
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 15:50, Asmus Freytag <asmusf@ix.netcom.com<mailto:asmusf@ix.netcom.com>> wrote:
On 1/19/2009 3:59 PM, Mark Davis wrote:
"no longer customarily used in modern texts" is pretty much what archaic means. These are listed as Archaic in the Unicode book - if they are not, we should correct that (although it is unclear from your message).
Mark,
look at a typical dictionary definition of "archaic":
1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a much earlier, often more primitive period, especially one that develops into a classical stage of civilization: <I>an archaic bronze statuette; Archaic Greece.</I>
2. No longer current or applicable; antiquated: <I>archaic laws.</I>
3. Of, relating to, or characteristic of words and language that were once in regular use but are now relatively rare and suggestive of an earlier style or period.
Spellings can change rather suddenly, therefore, something might no longer be in common use, but still lack the sense of "long ago" that seems tied up with the term "archaic". As you can see from several of the definitions, there's also a decided element of value judgment connoted with the use of the term. I believe in the context of Unicode, it it would be better if the term "archaic" was reserved for contexts where characters or scripts fell out of use centuries ago.
A./
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