J>Zarqa is basically "above". The detailed positioning rules of
Hebrew points and accents are too complex and imprecise and are
of no interest to character standards. Unicode provides just a
general indication of the placement.
J>For example, the placement of Dagesh, basically a dot in the
center of the letter, is affected by aesthetic considerations
and conventions such that most font makes prefer to have the
each letter with Dagesh a separate font. Or Sheva, basically
"below", is moved to the right on some letters.
I don't think a single character zarqa really is adequate.
Consider dagesh: as you've indicated, aesthetic considerations
can require a slightly different position for nearly every
consonant that it occurs with. Yet, for a given consonant it
would only ever occur in a single position. The is different
from the situation with the zarqa/zinor/zinnorit glyph, which
can appear over a given consonant in more than one position
with the different positions having different significance. So,
there are two distinct characters needed, whatever it seems
best to call them. Indeed, in each case aesthetics require
careful positioning on a consonant by consonant basis.
Nevertheless, it is my understanding that two distinct
characters are needed here.
Peter Constable
Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL
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