From: André Szabolcs Szelp (a.sz.szelp@gmail.com)
Date: Tue Mar 31 2009 - 04:25:42 CST
Hello!
Looking at this small sample, I believe that the green one is indeed
U+0465 as you have suspected, the blue one U+046D and -- more
controversially -- the red one is actually a(n experimental) glyph
variant of U+044E!
It seems quite sure that the dot on the preyotation is simply a font
style question. (c.f. also the capital one!)
The question of the red glyph is more subtle. One could either argue
that it was an experimental glyph variant to reflect the sound value
of cyrillic ю [ju] (which is _technically_ a і-о ligature) with a
novel і-у ligature to have a closer phonological match.
In this case it's not 100% sure whether one should consider the red
glyph as a historic (relatively short lived [19th century; see also
below]) glyph variant of classic and current ю or whether it should be
seen as an own character. This would need forther analysis.
(c.f. also http://www.google.at/search?q=%D1%8E%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BA+site%3Abg)
> and the red ones should be
> U+0456 і +ZWJ+ U+0443 у?
While this _could_ represent the glyph in question, due to the logic
of the cyrillic script (by which preyotated character have been always
separately encoded), this ZWJ solution seems to be counter-intuitive.
IMHO, either this is to be analysed as a historic glyph variant of ю
or encoded as a new character.
The "philosophy" of the font in question was seemingly to move from
the traditional glyph forms to more "transparent", phonological glyph
forms as it can be seen by the fact that it is stressing the original
ligature components vs. the traditional yotated forms by applying the
dot of the і, also the use of the і-у ligature vs. the і-о ligature
points this way.
You have to realise, that the time frame in question is marked by
letter-form innovations and stife for phonological representation of
language in the south slavic community (c.f. the genesis of the modern
Serbian Cyrillic alphabet and Vuk Stefanović Karadžić).
Also take into account: "Several Cyrillic alphabets with 28 to 44
letters were used in the beginning and the middle of the 19th century
during the efforts on the codification of Modern Bulgarian until an
alphabet with 32 letters, proposed by Marin Drinov, gained prominence
in the 1870s. The alphabet of Marin Drinov was used until the
orthographic reform of 1945 when the letters yat (Ѣ, ѣ, called "double
e"), and yus (Ѫ, ѫ) were removed from the alphabet, reducing the
number of letters to 30."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_alphabet#Alphabet)
It would be nice, if someone who has read considerable amount of 19th
century bulgarian printed matter could comment.
--Szabolcs
2009/3/31 Leo Broukhis <leob@mailcom.com>:
> An online friend of mine has posted a scan of
> "Периодическо списание на Българското книжовно дружество", година I,
> книжка пета и шеста, Браила, 1872, стр. 205.
>
> Do the red and green letters warrant encoding? Or the green letter a
> variant of U+0465, and the red ones should be
> U+0456 і +ZWJ+ U+0443 у?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Leo
>
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