Re: Fraktur yet again (was: Re: Response to Everson Phoenician and why June 7?)

From: Dean Snyder (dean.snyder@jhu.edu)
Date: Mon May 24 2004 - 08:37:30 CDT

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    Doug Ewell wrote at 5:12 PM on Sunday, May 23, 2004:

    >I absolutely DO disagree with the premise that lots of people would use
    >a separate Fraktur encoding. To my knowledge there has been no request
    >for one, and no serious desire on the part of scholars or anyone else to
    >encode Fraktur text separately from Antiqua text.

    Don't forget I said "lots of people RELATIVE to the potential number of
    users for separately encoded Phoenician."

    Do you disagree with THAT?

    >I believe users would
    >find it troublesome in the extreme to create a new encoding to represent
    >German-language text where there has only been one before (unlike the
    >apparent situation with Phoenician).

    Why would separately encoded Fraktur be troublesome? If your answer is
    what I expect, then this is precisely what I am saying for Palaeo-Hebrew
    (aka Phoenician) and Jewish-Hebrew (aka Square Hebrew).

    >Dean, if you insist on using Fraktur as an example that Unicode does not
    >separately encode script variants or font variants or "diascripts"
    >(whatever that means) ...

    Diascript is to script as dialect is to language - part of a continuum of
    relatively minor variations.

    >that "lots of people" would use, you must show
    >some shred of evidence that "lots of people" would in fact use a
    >separate Fraktur encoding. Does that make sense? Saying "that is my
    >opinion" does not constitute evidence. Otherwise the analogy is
    >pointless.

    Obviously - but only the number-of-potential-users analogy would be
    pointless, and not the inner script analogy comparing Fraktur/Roman with
    Palaeo-Hebrew/Jewish-Hebrew.

    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
    cell: 717 817-4897
    www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi



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