Hi folks,
CJF> Marco Cimarosti wrote:
>> So a devil's advocate may ask: if the Arabic shaping forms of Kaaf
>> have been unified in the same code point, then why Latin uppercase
>> and lowercase K haven't been unified as well? And, conversely, if
>> Latin case variant have been assigned to different code points,
>> why not Arabic shape variants?
CJF> Isn't it that Arabic shape variants can be determined from
CJF> context while Latin case variants cannot be? (Sometimes headings
CJF> etc. in Latin script are written in all caps.)
Oh, there's quite a bit of a functional difference in Arabic shapes
and Latin cases. Arabic shapes operate mainly on the script level;
they are different appearances of the same letter within the flow of
script. There are some exceptions from this rule, such as the use of
the final form of the letter HEH to denote Hijri dates or sometimes
the use of joined/non-joined variants to denote either parts from the
middle of a word or composite words in non-Arabic languages, but these
are comparatively rare and, in most cases, tied to the simple factor
of whether or not a word border is present at the respective point.
Latin cases, on the other hand, operate on the language level. In
German, nouns get capitalized to distinguish them from verbs; in most
languages written in Latin script, proper names get capitalized to
distinguish them as such; in some writing systems (e.g. Tibetan
transcription) capital letters get employed in the middle of words to
denote specific phonetic features and so on. All these features denote
quite language-inherent properties.
Philipp mailto:uzsv2k@uni-bonn.de
__________________________
I'm sorry, there's - um - / insufficient - what's-it-called? / The term eludes me...
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