Re: Cuneiform Free Variation Selectors

From: Dean Snyder (dean.snyder@jhu.edu)
Date: Tue Jan 20 2004 - 13:54:16 EST

  • Next message: Kenneth Whistler: "RE: Chinese FVS? (was: RE: Cuneiform Free Variation Selectors)"

    Kenneth Whistler wrote at 10:35 AM on Tuesday, January 20, 2004:

    >Dean Snyder asserted:
    >
    >> >No, we do not need to rehearse the pros and cons of the "dynamic"
    >> >model for Cuneiform already. Abundant evidence for why it has not
    >> >been chosen has already been presented.
    >>
    >> But NO ONE mentioned free variation selectors in the discussion until
    >> yesterday.
    >
    >This is not the case. *I* mentioned free variation selectors
    >during both of the ICE meetings. They weren't discussed at any
    >great length, precisely because I and the other encoding experts
    >did not feel that they were applicable to the basic encoding issues
    >of Cuneiform.

    Sorry I missed your mention of them at the ICE conferences.

    But I was referring to their not being mentioned in these fairly
    extensive email discussions on dynamic cuneiform over the last month.
    And, to my knowledge, this is the first time we've actually discussed the
    issue to any depth.

    >They may have a place in some future refinement of Cuneiform, but
    >only for representation of notable variants of the *statically*
    >encoded list of base signs, *not* for the kind of dynamic sign
    >building that you have been advocating.

    I don't want to burden your time, but I do not understand the technical
    resistance to this. I know there are implementation complexities, time to
    market issues, costs, etc. And these are indeed real considerations. But
    I do not see the TECHNICAL reasons against it, especially when it is
    already being used for somewhat similar purposes.

    An aside:

    How does Hangul jamo relate to all of this? From a quick reading of
    chapter 11.4 of The Unicode Standard it sounds similar to what I am
    thinking about dynamic cuneiform.

    Thanks.

    Respectfully,

    Dean A. Snyder

    Assistant Research Scholar
    Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project
    Computer Science Department
    Whiting School of Engineering
    218C New Engineering Building
    3400 North Charles Street
    Johns Hopkins University
    Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218

    office: 410 516-6850
    www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi

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