RE: ZWJ, ZWNJ and VS in Latin and other Greek-derived scripts

From: Ruszlan Gaszanov (ruszlan@ather.net)
Date: Fri Jan 26 2007 - 14:41:15 CST

  • Next message: Kenneth Whistler: "Re: ZWJ, ZWNJ and VS in Latin and other Greek-derived scripts"

    Ok, consider '+AOY-' +ADw-U+-00E6+AD4- vs. 'ae' and '+AVM-' +ADw-U+-0153+AD4- vs. 'oe' for instance. In Latin, both are just stylistic variations. In Nordic languages, '+AOY-' +ADw-U+-00E6+AD4- is a distinct letter. In French, '+AVM-' +ADw-U+-0153+AD4- ligature glyph is strongly preferred over 'oe' in most words (unless can't be rendered by the system), but may be considered incorrect in some cases (mostly borrowed words). In English typography, those ligature glyphs are usually preferred (though not considered mandatory) in unaltered French and Latin words (e.g. 'chef-d'+AVM-uvre', 'encyclop+AOY-dia'), but shouldn't be used in most other cases (e.g. 'does', 'maestro'). In proper names, for instance, both '+AOY-' and 'ae' forms are ok for those of Latin origin, but '+AOY-' in a Danish name shouldn't be rendered as 'ae' and 'ae' in an Italian name shouldn't be rendered as '+AOY-'.

    Again, there are all those issues with German Fraktur orthography described in other posts. And there are numerous medieval texts where different ligatures can be used either as stylistic variations or as characters with distinct semantics.

    Ruszl+AOE-n.

    -----Original Message-----
    From: unicode-bounce+AEA-unicode.org +AFs-mailto:unicode-bounce+AEA-unicode.org+AF0- On Behalf Of Asmus Freytag
    Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 7:26 PM
    To: Ruszlan Gaszanov
    Cc: unicode+AEA-unicode.org
    Subject: Re: ZWJ, ZWNJ and VS in Latin and other Greek-derived scripts

    On 1/26/2007 12:48 AM, Ruszlan Gaszanov wrote:
    +AD4- John H. Jenkins wrote:
    +AD4-
    +AD4APg- In any event, I reiterate: Ligature formation in Latin is a matter of stylistic preference.
    subject to the orthographic restrictions in certain languages, and
    requirements in certain styles (Blackletter).
    +AD4APg- Stylistic preferences do not belong in plain text.
    +AD4APg-
    +AD4-
    +AD4- The same ligatures (or glyph variations for that matter) could be considered
    +AD4- stylistic variations in some texts, but may have distinct semantics in others. As a
    +AD4- trivial example, Latin letters v, u and w can be given - in Classic Latin, u is a
    +AD4- glyph variation of v and w is a vv ligature - thus vv +AD0- uu +AD0- w. In most modern
    +AD4- languages using Latin script, however, those are three distinct letters.
    +AD4-
    +AD4- I'm not suggesting that we should use +ADw-v ZWJ v+AD4- for w or +ADw-v VS2+AD4- for u, but there
    +AD4- are many cases where this approach could, in fact, be useful. When ligature is a
    +AD4- purely stylistic feature, ZWJ shouldn't be used, but a font may or may not ligate
    +AD4- characters. But if the author does use ZWJ or VS, it is probably because ligation or
    +AD4- specific glyph variation is important for semantics, rather then a merely stylistic
    +AD4- feature.
    +AD4-
    This kind of argument is rather pointless without a set reasonable
    examples. (Classical Latin is not sufficient, for the reason you
    yourself provide).

    A./

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