From: Lorna_Priest@sil.org
Date: Wed Oct 24 2007 - 13:02:17 CDT
Tim Armes wrote on 10/24/2007 03:07:51 AM:
> Hi,
>
> I'm looking for accurate answers to the following questions. I've
This is almost like asking "how long is a string?" :-) I don't think the
answers to these questions currently exist. The CLDR is making an attempt
at documenting characters required for writing a language which might
answer #1, but it doesn't cover anywhere near all the languages in the
world.
> 1) How many and which languages absolutely require the use of
> combinging marks due to the fact there the pre-composed glyphs
> aren't sufficient?
I just know there are a lot
> 2) How many and which languages absolutely require the use of
> variant selectors?
>
> 3) How many and which languages absolutely require the use of variant
glyphs?
A variant by whose standard? The glyph TUS displays may not actually be
the first choice for a lot of languages. For example, because we (SIL)
believe more languages use a capital ENG (U+014A) that looks like an
enlarged small eng, rather than an "N" shaped capital ENG, we have chosen
to make a "variant" of the capital ENG (U+014A) be the default glyph in
our fonts with the glyph as shown in TUS as a "variant" in our fonts.
If you are interested, you can see a list of all the variants we've added
to our Latin/Cyrillic fonts here:
http://scripts.sil.org/SILUnicodeRF_Features We have not documented which
languages use these variants, and it doesn't help you with other scripts.
Lorna Priest
SIL International
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