Michael Everson said:
> At 14:48 -0700 2001-04-20, Kenneth Whistler wrote:
> >Rick said:
> >
> >> The serious scholars seem to already have software systems that are
> >> adequate for their needs -- e.g. the Manel de Codage.
> >
> >That is sufficient for some needs, but clearly does not suffice for
> >standardization of Egyptian hieroglyphics, which is what the German
> >Egyptologists, in particular, seem to be worrying about.
>
> They are worried about the repertoire. The Manual de codage *coding
> conventions*, as used to manipulate the characters, are implemented
> in a number of software packages on Mac and PC, have not been
> criticized.
O.k. I will start the process of criticizing the *coding conventions*
as related to the encoding proposal, on the appropriate forums.
> >Some of the Egyptologists are concerned with what they see as serious
> >flaws in the Manuel de codage, and are legitimately worried that if
> >it is simply encoded quickly in the international standard, that they
> >will thereafter forever be hampered by erroneous unifications or splits
> >of characters when they have completed enough research on the repertoire
> >to come around with a more completely researched repertoire proposal
> >at a later time.
>
> KEN! KEN! These are repertoire issues.
Yes, they are. And you have to engage the people who have issues with
the repertoire, if you want a compromise proposal to move forward.
>
> In N1944 I present 761 "basic" characters, 40 formatting characters,
> and 4548 "extended" characters. Now the basic characters belong to
> the Gardiner set, which is by far and away the most commonly known
> set of characters. This is the set you find expounded in all the
> basic grammars and all the introductory books you buy in museums and
> library exhibitions and so on.
Yes, no issue with that characterization.
>
> The Germans have told us that people are working on a bigger set of
> extended characters, where unifications and splits are to be
> identified. Fine, I have no objection to waiting a decade for
> Egyptian Hieroglyphs Extension A to be ready for encoding.
That is an important distinction then to make clear to WG2 and
to the German Egyptologists, as well as to UTC, as it significantly
changes the scope of what you are pushing for now.
> That wouldn't apply to the Gardiner set. This is SO widespread (and
> relatively small) that even if there are some splits or unifications
> in it, it is worth encoding each of them anyway.
This is a limited point which could be used as the basis for
making progress. If you focus on this point, and engage in the
discussion on it with the objectors, it could sway a compromise
that would get the Gardiner set encoded more quickly.
> Consider those to be
> like simplified and traditional Chinese. Now, the rest of the set,
> the much larger set, that SHOULD wait for the scholars to be happy
> with it. The amateur community, the enthusiast community, and the
> community of first-year students of Egyptian don't need that set.
> They need the Gardiner set.
Agreed.
> >The other aspect here is that it is not just a matter of serious scholars
> >who "can't be bothered wasting their time on such frivolity." In part,
> >this is simply a problem of doing the work to get the right people
> >sitting down to talk together. As for any complex script encoding, you
> >need to make the time and opportunities for the character standards
> >experts to communicate with the language and script specialists.
>
> Get them onto the egyptian@unicode.org list!
I'll try.
--Ken
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