Re: ASSAMESE AND BENGALI CONTROVERSY IN UNICODE STANDARD ::::: SOLUTIONS

I am reminded of the last time when this topic came up, at which time
"delex r" wrote of the reasons for the importance of this renaming, on
10 Nov 2011:

> Well I am trying to tell Unicode that "Assamese" is not a barbarian language without a script.

If that truly is the concern here, then surely English should feel at
least as slighted. The word "ENGLISH" appears nowhere in the Unicode
database as the description of any character. Nor does "ITALIAN",
"DUTCH", or "FINNISH". "FRENCH" appears only in U+20A3 FRENCH FRANC
SIGN (a currency symbol) and in U+1F35F FRENCH FRIES. Even "AMERICAN"
shows up only in the emoji U+1F3C8 AMERICAN FOOTBALL. I think this
demonstrates that having a name on a character in Unicode does not
indicate anything about how literate a language is or should be
perceived. Conversely, whatever script the Phaistos disc is written in
has its entire known literature consisting of a single document, but it
gets a whole section in the standard.

On 07/07/2012 03:39 PM, Satyakam Phukan wrote:
>
> *Supposing**renaming*is taken up as the *best solution *for solving
> the controversy then the *whole current Bengali Code Chart*of the
> *Unicode Standard*will have to have *alternative nomenclature
> *beginning with the *title*of the script like *ASSAMESE AND
> BENGALI*and the*individual characters*will also have *alternative
> character descriptors*like this :

See above. It isn't about what characters are named. There are a great
many horrendously misnamed characters in Unicode, whose glaring mistakes
of history, culture, and simple spelling are there to stay.

I've already said more than I should on this; plenty of other people on
this list can answer much better than I can. But I will advise you a
slightly on your word-choice.

> *CONCLUSION :*
>
> /*The solution therefore lies in duplicity.*/

It is possible I am misreading this, but it seems to me you are misusing
the word "duplicity." "Duplicity" generally means dishonesty or
deceit. If the solution truly lies in deceit, it probably is not such a
good solution. Consider words like "duplication" or a favorite
technical term of Unicoders, "disunification."

~mark
Received on Sat Jul 07 2012 - 21:41:33 CDT