From: Karl Pentzlin (karl-pentzlin@acssoft.de)
Date: Wed Apr 05 2006 - 00:56:40 CST
Am Dienstag, 4. April 2006 um 17:51 schrieb Michael Everson:
ME> I wouldn't preallocate more space for the Phaistos Disc characters.
ME> We may never ever find any more.
But, if the Phaistos Disc symbol set is encoded, and a second disk
is unearthed (within the next 3,500 years or even before the next UTC
meeting) containing at least one symbol hitherto unknown,
then there will raise a lot more discussion in the literature, needing
of course an encoding of the new symbol(s). This may seem unlikely after
digging 98 years in vain, but cannot be proven impossible.
Thus, at the present time, either there is only explicitly the "Phaistos
Disk of 1908 Symbol Set" encoded, or the symbol set cannot be considered
stable (i.e. definitely complete, while the known symbols themselves
of course are well defined and "stable").
(This is no counterargument for encoding, anyway.)
btw, I prefer the term "symbols" resp. "symbol set" to "characters"
resp. "script", as thhe Phaistos Disc is not yet proven to show
"characters" of a "script".
(This again is no counterargument for encoding, as Unicode already
contains a lot of symbols and symbol sets).
Speaking of "symbols" makes the "undeciphered" argument irrelevant,
as symbols stand for themselves.
Personally, I see the reason for a encoding the Phaistos Disc symbol
set like the reason for encoding Chess symbols (U+2654...U+265F)
or Tai Xuan Jing symbols (U+1D300...U+1D35F): There is a well-defined
symbol set which is needed by a wide user community in plain text.
- Karl Pentzlin
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