From: Patrick Andries (patrick.andries@xcential.com)
Date: Fri Jul 08 2005 - 09:38:02 CDT
Michael Everson a écrit :
>
> We're not going to do that. It would introduce inconsistency in
> representation of Coptic text.
>
Why do you say « we » when you express your opinion ? How do you know
what the WG2 will decide regarding a reference glyph change in the years
to come ?
>
> It may be the case that symbol is never found without an abbreviation
> bar. That does not mean that the abbreviation bar should be built into
> it.
Well, you then expose yourself to some people encoding in their text the
same symbol with and without the bar. I mean using two different Unicode
character sequences (SHIMA SHIMA alone, and SHIMA SIMA with the standard
contraction bar) to represent the same symbol. This is not a good idea,
I would say, when this can simply be treated, as John suggested, as a
glyph variant as is the case of the ordinal o (U+00BA) in Latin for
example (may or may not have an underlining bar)
>
>> I suspect it was included because the proposers did not know or did
>> not want to depend on newer technologies like OpenType which could
>> easily compose this abbreviation in all its forms (ligated or not,
>> flattened or not, with or without abbreviation bar) given the basic
>> Coptic letters and the abbreviation bar.
>
>
> That isn't true. We knew perfectly well. SHIMA SIMA may not be an
> obligatory ligature,
So why even encode it : treat it as a normal contraction, the
contraction bar can force the ligature depending on the font style
chosen. I really thing this is where the problem stems from. But let
bygones be bygones, the encoding cannot be undone.
> It may not "mean" anything without the bar. It is nevertheless an
> element of the writing system.
Well, by your construction. This ligature is in no way compulsory, not
found anywhere else apparently but this common abbreviation and it is
not a complete symbol : it lacks its bar on top as you admit yourself.
When have we last encoded parts of symbols that need to be completed
with an element found elsewhere ?
Regards,
P. A.
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