In the Standard there are letters, used with the IPA like LATIN SMALL
LETTER ALPHA which sorts with LATIN SMALL LETTER A -- but the current
mappings to IPA also use GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA as a basic constituent of
the IPA.
This will cause havoc in sorting -- and one does sort IPA text, in
glossaries etc. -- because two scripts are intermixed.
Would there be support for adding the (few) Latin Greek-cloned characters
to the standard? I know, unification was probably why they aren't there in
the first place, but in this instance I think the unification will
interefere with any kind of default ordering algorithm. The IPA _is_
quintessentially Latin, and I would like to have a single ordering locale
be able to handle sorting in either Latin (incl. IPA) or Greek. Currently
we will not be able to do this.
The question is precisely that characters have properties, and in this case
the characters belong to more than one script -- which is in violation of
the unification rules that kept ALPHA and A apart in the first place.
Candidates for encoding of the top of my head are BETA, THETA, LAM(B)DA,
and CHI. LATIN LETTERs ALPHA, OPEN E, GAMMA, IOTA, PHI, and UPSILON already
exist.
-- Michael Everson, Everson Gunn Teoranta 15 Port Chaeimhghein Íochtarach; Baile Átha Cliath 2; Éire (Ireland) Gutháin: +353 1 478-2597, +353 1 283-9396 http://www.indigo.ie/egt 27 Páirc an Fhéithlinn; Baile an Bhóthair; Co. Átha Cliath; Éire
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