From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Fri Jun 06 2003 - 16:21:01 EDT
For the Latin Gamma, you're right, I think I would use the following pair, which I would map on an existing keyboard as AltGr+G or AltGr+Shift+G:
LAYOUT ;an extra '@' at the end is a dead key
//SC VK_ Cap 0 1 2 6 7
//-- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
22 G 1 g G -1 0263 0194 // LATIN SMALL LETTER G, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G, <none>, LATIN SMALL LETTER GAMMA, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA
For the "epsilon" (which in fact as a value of open A and not really open E) the choice is left open, but we can't use AltGr+E on most keyboards which is already mapped to the Euro symbol. If the extended keyboard is also used for French, AE and OE ligatures will probably be mapped to AltGr+A and AltGr+O (both with Shift for the uppercase version), so we need probably another key, and the most probable place for it would be AltGr+U, which as very few possible assignments (as all variants of U can be formed by a diacritic entered as a precomposed key or a dead key sequence).
But I disagree with you for the lowercase letter, as in UCD you find:
0190;LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OPEN E;Lu;0;L;;;;;N;LATIN CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON;;;025B;
025B;LATIN SMALL LETTER OPEN E;Ll;0;L;;;;;N;LATIN SMALL LETTER EPSILON;;0190;;0190
(So this is U+025B, but not:
0259;LATIN SMALL LETTER SCHWA;Ll;0;L;;;;;N;;;018F;;018F)
This gives the following custom keyboard mapping:
LAYOUT ;an extra '@' at the end is a dead key
//SC VK_ Cap 0 1 2 6 7
//-- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
16 U 1 u U -1 0190 025B // LATIN SMALL LETTER U, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U, <none>, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OPEN E, LATIN SMALL LETTER OPEN E
For the encoding of letters with dots below, it seems appropriate to use map dead key for dot below (for example AltGr+*), and for the ring that appears *after* the consonnant, it seems that the small superscript latin letter O is not the best choice (it is not considered as a leter modifier, but a plain letter in Spanish and the superscript is a font style that symbolise the abbreviation).
My best candidate it to use a spacing letter modifier, so I would have used this one if it was not a compatibility character:
02DA;RING ABOVE;Sk;0;ON;<compat> 0020 030A;;;;N;SPACING RING ABOVE;;;;
Why isn't there a MODIFIER LETTER RING ABOVE (with General Category "Lm"), despite there's anassociated combining diacritic ? What seems strange here is the General category "Sk" assigned here (as if it was a substitute for the degree symbol), despite it is clear that Tifinagh uses this character as a effective letter modifier after a consonnant. It could have been a combining diacritic too if we defined it as COMBINING RING ABOVE RIGHT, with the combining class value ccc=232(alias AR) (but it would have required defining a new dead key, or the same dead key for the COMBINING RING ABOVE.
I think that the current allocation of the previous character is still appropriate, but the compatibility decomposition seems strange: why don't we have the same thing for U+02CB (MODIFIER LETTER GRAVE ACCENT)which appropriately has no compatibility decomposition and has the correct "Lm" general category.
Mapping U+02DA to the keyboard would probably not require a dead key, and it could replace the degree sign on a extended French keyboard to create a French+Tifinagh extended keyboard:
LAYOUT ;an extra '@' at the end is a dead key
//SC VK_ Cap 0 1 2 6 7
//-- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
0c OEM_4 1 0029 02da@ -1 005d -1 // RIGHT PARENTHESIS, RondEnChef, <none>, RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET, <none>
DEADKEY 02da
0061 00e5 // a -> å
0041 00c5 // A -> Å
0075 016f // u -> ů
0055 016e // U -> Ů
02da 02da // ˚ -> ˚
0020 00b0 // -> °
KEYNAME_DEAD
02da "RondEnChef"
Note that I used a mapping on the French keyboard, because it is the Latin-based language spoken approximately in the same countries as Tifinagh, in addition to Arabic. So French keyboards are quite common, or users are already trained to use and switch from the French keyboard and the Arabic keyboard. Adding Tifinagh to the French keyboard is then quite simple and natural.
-- Philippe.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marco Cimarosti" <marco.cimarosti@essetre.it>
To: "'Philippe Verdy'" <verdy_p@wanadoo.fr>; "Azzedine Ait Khelifa" <Azzedine.Aitkhelifa@club-internet.fr>
Cc: <unicode@unicode.org>
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 2:08 PM
Subject: RE: Tamazight/berber language : How to send mail, write word documents ....
> Philippe Verdy wrote:
> > However the interesting part of your question for discussion
> > in this list is:
> > - Which Unicode character should be used to encode the
> > spacing ring? (may conflict with the degree sign, or a
> > upscript small letter O)
> > - Should you use a Greek Gamma or a Latin Gamma, and a Greek epsilon?
>
> Of course, one should avoid mixing up different scripts in the same
> orthography. So, I'd suggest:
>
> - aɛbbuḍ ("epsilon"): Ɛ U+0190 (LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OPEN E), ɛ
> U+0259 (LATIN SMALL LETTER OPEN E)
>
> - aɣrum ("gamma"): Ɣ U+0194 (LATIN CAPITAL LETTER GAMMA), ɣ U+0263
> (LATIN SMALL LETTER GAMMA)
>
> > Your table also displays only the lowercase letters. It would
> > be interesting to show the associated uppercase letters.
>
> The only dubious case in the table is uppercase aɣrum, which could have the
> Greek shape. But it's unlikely.
>
> _ Marco
>
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