From: John Hudson (tiro@tiro.com)
Date: Thu Apr 29 2004 - 15:08:34 EDT
Peter Kirk wrote:
>> Peter, using a systematic transliteration between two structurally
>> identical scripts is not comparable to hack encodings.
> So, do you mean that the only reason hacked encodings for Greek or
> Cyrillic are unacceptable is that there a a few Greek or Cyrillic
> characters which do not have any direct Latin counterpart?
No, I mean that transliterating, i.e. using the characters of one script to record text
that might also or originally be written in another script, is not the same as having
those characters masquerade as the other script. The fact that there is not always a
one-to-one match between scripts simply makes the hacks more numerous and incompatible,
since there is no systematic way to determine which characters in the hack should
masquarade as the extra characters in the faked script. None of this is remotely similar
to e.g. encoding the same Sanskrit language text in the Devanagari or Tibetan scripts
according to the preference of the scholar/publisher.
For the record, I have no objection to the encoding of the 'Phoenician' script as
proposed, although I think the proposer and the UTC should consider a more generic name
for the block that makes clearer that this encoding unifies specific script variants, any
and all of which can also be encoded using Hebrew characters *if that is your wish*. It
seems to me that anyone bright enough to wrap his or her head around Hebrew grammar should
be able to handle this simple concept without 'total confusion'.
John Hudson
-- Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com Vancouver, BC tiro@tiro.com I often play against man, God says, but it is he who wants to lose, the idiot, and it is I who want him to win. And I succeed sometimes In making him win. - Charles Peguy
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