From: mpsuzuki@hiroshima-u.ac.jp
Date: Wed Jun 10 2009 - 02:31:23 CDT
Dear Andrew,
I found your proposal to SC2/WG2 N3643 to add 4 IDCs.
In my understanding, you propose them as the tools for
standardization works to classify the ideographic
characters and evaluate the similarities of their shapes.
I think it's good idea and I agree with the requirement
of new IDC (a few proposed combinations are impossible
to be described by existing IDCs), but I'm not sure if 4
IDCs are sufficient for future works.
You mentioned several scripts - although I'm unfamiliar
with their detailed calligraphic/typographic rules, I
heard that a composite glyph of Khitan small script can
include 2-7 components. If the experts want to describe
such composite glyph by single IDC and multiple
components, they may request more IDCs. If such
possibility is not unrealistic, I think it's a time to
propose another larger block for extended IDCs.
In fact, the addition of 4 IDCs will fullfill existing IDC
block, so they should be carefully designed. The proposed
IDCs are sampled from the IDCs for Old Yi (and you've shown
they are useful for Nushu), not for CJK Ideographs. It can
be arguable whether it is good choice to fill IDC block by
the IDCs for Old Yi, not for CJK Ideographs.
Among the mentioned scripts in your proposal, all of them
would be coded out of BMP, so I wish coding new IDC(s) out
of BMP won't be serious difficulty.
# There can be an objection - if the standardization work
# of completely unencoded script usually starts with font
# using BMP PUA codepoints, it can be troublesome for some
# existing systems to mix the components on BMP PUA and
# new IDCs on non-BMP area.
Andrew, how do you think about the possibility about
the requirement of extra IDCs after your proposal, and
the requirement of the IDC restriction to BMP?
Regards,
mpsuzuki
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