Re: 0027, 02BC, 2019, or a new character?

James Kass via Unicode <unicode_at_unicode.org>:
>
> It will probably be the ASCII apostrophe. The stated intent favors
> the apostrophe over diacritics or special characters to ensure that
> the language can be input to computers with standard keyboards.

Yes, this can only mean U+0027, but apparently official material, in MS Word format, shows the curly apostrophe punctuation mark U+2019 instead. There is probably no doubt among list subscribers that U+02BC should be used for any apostrophe that works like a proper letter.

<http://www.akorda.kz/ru/legal_acts/decrees/o-perevode-alfavita-kazahskogo-yazyka-s-kirillicy-na-latinskuyu-grafiku> embeds <http://www.akorda.kz/upload/media/files/d9bc81021d59a7eaa9835fdae9069532.docx>, and both are quoted in <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakh_alphabets#Latin_script>.

  Cyrl Latn-kz Latn
  Ә A’/A' Ä/Ə
  Ғ G’/G' Ğ/Ƣ
  И/Й I’/I' Ï/İ
  Ң N’/N' Ñ/Ꞑ
  Ө O’/O' Ö/Ɵ
  У Y’/Y' W
  Ү U’/U' Ü
  Ч C’/C' Ç/Ch
  Ш S’/S' Ş/Sh

I sympathize with the ease of input argument, but input (keys) does neither have to equate storage (characters) nor output (glyphs). Furthermore, all orthographies should (and many constructed ones don't) respect that almost all text is read more often and by more people than it is written by, thus reader experience is more important than writer experience.

Whether you use

- a single dead key that has to be typed before the corresponding letter without diacritic marks or
- a combinator key (e.g. AltGr) that must be kept pressed while the base is typed or
- a secondary selection that appears when the base letter's key is hold down longer or
- separate keys for each letter outside the MRA,

the best solution depends on the hardware, software and, of course, the writing system, i.e. how frequently and prominently these letters occur.
Received on Wed Jan 17 2018 - 16:11:43 CST