From: Andreas Stötzner (as@signographie.de)
Date: Tue Aug 11 2009 - 15:15:42 CDT
There seems to be repeated confusion about Greek minuscules beta and
theta when it comes to their usage in phonetic context (IPA). Whereas a
“Latin alpha†has been granted its separat codepoint at 0251 the β and
θ have to be represented based on the common Greek codepoints 03B2 and
03B8 even in IPA environments. For those two characters (as for the
‘alpha’ 0251) a proprietary ‘latinised’ glyph tradition exists in
phonetics, requiring a distinct Latin-style glyph moulding opposite to
the more traditional Greek-style moulding. Being merely a matter of
style at the first glance this becomes a troublesome issue for font
developers who are confronted with a demand to provide IPA-styled beta
and theta and yet want to maintain the typographic integrity of the
Greek range in their font(s).
This is what has been considered so far to solve the problem:
– using glyph variants and features (applies to Opentype format only,
interoperability unsafe);
– using PUA codepoints (bad practice, interoperability restricted and
questionable);
– urging phonetists to accept the Greek glyphs as they are (does not
work with every typeface);
– leave the phonies in their typographic ghetto and thus keeping IPA
text matters incompatible to the rest of the world (which seems absurd
to me);
– to seperately encode LATIN SMALL LETTER BETA and LATIN LETTER SMALL
THETA which would font producers allow to get rid of the trouble and
IPAists to have their will …
– What are you suggesting?
A. St.
_________________________________________________________
Andreas Stötzner Signographie
Signographisches Institut Andreas Stötzner i.A. (Pegau/Sa.)
as@signographie.de Tel. +49-34296-74849 Fax +49-34296-74815
Willkommen auf www.signographie.de
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