From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Mon Jun 07 2004 - 13:52:13 CDT
On 07/06/2004 10:48, Asmus Freytag wrote:
> At 03:44 AM 6/7/2004, Peter Kirk wrote:
>
>> On 06/06/2004 14:38, Patrick Durusau wrote:
>>
>>> The reason I pointed out that Semitic scholars had reached their
>>> view long prior to Unicode was to point out that they were not
>>> following the character/glyph model of the Unicode standard.
>>
>>
>>
>> I don't claim that they are following the Unicode model. But their
>> insight into character identity remains valid.
>
>
> No. If you need to decide what qualifies as a character for the
> purposes of encoding in the Unicode Standard you must base your
> decision on the terms of reference for the Unicode Standard,
> in other words that which the character glyph model attempts to capture.
>
> This reiterates something that we've seen repeatedly in this
> discussion. Common terms like 'character' and 'script' can be used
> with somewhat different meanings in different domains. There's nothing
> wrong with that, as long as one can carefully apply only the
> definitions proper to the domain at hand.
>
> To me, it seems that you continue to confuse these, and as long as you
> do, this discussion cannot bring any interesting results.
>
> A./
>
>
OK, let's look at the Unicode definitions, from TUS pp. 63-64:
> D2a Character identity: The identity of a character is established by
> its character name
> and representative glyph in Chapter 16, Code Charts.
> • A character may have a broader range of use than the most literal
> interpretation of
> its name might indicate; the coded representation, name, and
> representative glyph
> need to be taken in context when establishing the identity of a
> character. For example,
> U+002E FULL STOP can represent a sentence period, an abbreviation
> period, a
> decimal number separator in English, a thousands number separator in
> German,
> and so on. The character name itself is unique, but may be misleading.
> See “Character
> Names” in Section 16.1, Character Names List.
> • Consistency with the representative glyph does not require that the
> images be identical
> or even graphically similar; rather, it means that both images are
> generally recognized
> to be representations of the same character. Representing the character
> U+0061 LATIN SMALL LETTER A by the glyph “X” would violate its
> character identity.
> ...
> D3 Abstract character: A unit of information used for the
> organization, control, or representation
> of textual data.
> • When representing data, the nature of that data is generally
> symbolic as opposed to
> some other kind of data (for example, aural or visual). Examples of
> such symbolic
> data include letters, ideographs, digits, punctuation, technical
> symbols, and dingbats.
> • An abstract character has no concrete form and should not be
> confused with a
> glyph.
> • An abstract character does not necessarily correspond to what a user
> thinks of as a
> “character” and should not be confused with a grapheme.
> • The abstract characters encoded by the Unicode Standard are known as
> Unicode
> abstract characters.
> • Abstract characters not directly encoded by the Unicode Standard can
> often be represented
> by the use of combining character sequences.
These definitions seem to me to be entirely compatible with those used
by Semitic scholars when they note that, for example, a Hebrew alef is
the same character as a Phoenician alef. I note for example the criteria
"both images are generally recognized to be representations of the same
character" and "An abstract character has no concrete form and should
not be confused with a glyph."
Patrick, perhaps you are able to show us ways in which these definitions
differ?
Now if the Unicode definition of "character" were "a character is what
we decide to call a character", then you might have an argument. It
seems rather that you are clutching at straws to avoid the obvious
conclusion that the Phoenician proposal is in fundamental conflict with
Semitic scholars' understanding of Semitic scripts. Dr Kaufman
recognised this rather obvious fact as long ago as 1st May.
I have just uploaded my official Response to the revised "Final proposal
for encoding the Phoenician script in the UCS", just submitted to the
UTC, to http://qaya.org/academic/hebrew/Phoenician.html and
http://qaya.org/academic/hebrew/Phoenician.pdf. I don't propose to enter
into detailed discussion of it in this forum.
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/
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