From: André Szabolcs Szelp (a.sz.szelp@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Jun 09 2011 - 01:11:11 CDT
While calling (and defining) IPA as a language is clearly a dead end (and
cannot be argued in any way), one might want to consider IPA as a separate
_writing_system_.
So a new Script tag "Ipha" might be introducable. Peter's example could be
"th-Ipha" then.
Actually, quite some arguments speaks for recognizing IPA as a writing
system, though further disunification work should be done in this case.*
Some of these reasons are (just stating the most blatant ones):
- borrowing from multiple, very different scripts (latin, greek, even arabic
(horns ram < ayin),
- use of letters altered to an extent, that some of them are barely
recognizable.
- IPA-specific diacritics.
- And most importantly, being caseless. (Reborrowing of IPA symbols into
certain Latin scripts, mostly of young literary languages, where they get
casing pairs is an entirely different matter).
* I understand that this is the exact matter why the committees are hesitant
to touch this hot potatoe. It is something which would need a lot of
thorough consideration, could have relatively broad scope, and which can be
easily smashed down (without further detailed resoning) with "encoding
stability issues".
Yours,
Szabolcs
On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 12:36 AM, Peter Constable <petercon@microsoft.com>wrote:
> IPA is not a language; it is a writing convention. The language of a text
> is a separate matter. If, for example, you have an IPA transcription of
> (say) Thai-language utterances, then a tag that identifies both the language
> as being Thai and the written form as being IPA would be "th-Latn-fonipa".
>
>
> Peter
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: unicode-bounce@unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org] On
> Behalf Of Marion Gunn
> Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2011 3:37 PM
> To: Otto Stolz
> Cc: unicode@unicode.org
> Subject: Re: Character Identity and Font Selection
>
> I agree. I made the argument for making IPA so (many years ago), so I
> cannot but agree with you.
> mg
>
> Scrobh 08/06/2011 12:21, Otto Stolz:
> > ...If IPA characters cannot be dis-unified from Latin, and Greek,
> > characters, eventually the text-processing, and the rendering,
> > software should solve the problem via language data, as outlined
> > above; i. e., IPA should be handled as a ‘language’, in its own right.
> >
> > Best wishes,
> > Otto Stolz
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Marion Gunn * eGteo (Estab.1991)
> 27 Páirc an Fhéithlinn, Baile an
> Bhóthair, An Charraig Dhubh,
> Co. Átha Cliath, Éire/Ireland.
> * mgunn@egt.ie * eamonn@egt.ie *
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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