From: Kenneth Whistler (kenw@sybase.com)
Date: Fri Jan 18 2008 - 18:54:30 CST
> >Regarding the proposed COMBINING STRAIGHT RIGHT-POINTING HOOK BELOW
> >and its similarity to the existing U+0238 COMBINING OGONEK, the
> >similarity is only very superficial.
>
> I disagree. The ogonek, while used in Polish and Lithuanian and
> Navajo, has been widely used in Germanic linguistics, for instance in
> Old Norse.
>
> >The proposed character has a straight vertical stem and attaches to
> >the center or something left of the center of its base character.
> >Thus, it has the general shape of a Greek small iota.
>
> In some fonts. In what way does it contrast with an ogonek, as for
> instance, used in Old Norse?
>
> >On the other side, the stem of the ogonek is slanted or bent to the
> >upper right, and attaches to the right of its base character.
> >(see attacted picture.)
>
> I see. I think this is an artefact of a particular font, rather than
> a principled difference from the ogonek.
Having looked at the original proposal and the various other
exhibit pictures offered so far, I still agree with Michael.
There are even more forms of right hooks that can be dug out
in old books, including ones that look like reversed cedillas,
and will all manner of slanting and attachment and bowl
shapes on the hooks.
Trying to pick one of these forms out to encode a separate
character for it wouldn't be a net positive for the standard,
IMO -- it would increase the problems in how to represent
text consistently, rather than decrease them.
> Now it is true that in Germanic
> linguistics the ogonek is usually used for nasalization. Have you
> considered U+031C COMBINING LEFT HALF RING BELOW (which is used for
> open vowels) or indeed U+0345 COMBINING GREEK YPOGEGRAMMENI?
As I see it there are two kinds of distinctions to be
made here:
1. Functionally different diacritics used typically to
represent different phonetic attributes:
a. nasalization
b. openness of vowel
2. Formally different typical representative glyph shapes
a. the right-facing left half ring shape below, never attached
b. the "ogonek" hook below, sometimes attached, sometimes not
The IPA uses the combining tilde (U+0303) to represent
nasalization, and uses the combining left half ring (U+031C)
to represent openness of vowels.
Other orthographies use the combining ogonek (U+0328) to
represent nasalization.
What Karl is reporting for some low German dialect transcription
practice is use of a glyph which falls within the range
of variation for the combining ogonek to represent openness
of vowels.
Rather than encode yet another combining diacritic character
for this, with a shape that would confuse because of its
overlap with the hooks for ogoneks, and for a usage that
overlaps functionally with already existing diacritics,
I think the answer for representation of these Low German
dialect transcription conventions is either:
A. State that the hook is represented in Unicode with
the combining ogonek (U+0328), because in these materials
no contrast is required between that and a hook
representing nasalization (since that is not used), so
as to get more accurate represention of *FORM* using
default fonts. (Of course a specialized font could
get the exact shape required.)
B. State that the hook is represented in Unicode with
the combining left half ring (U+031C), in line with
IPA usage, so as to get more accurate representation
of *FUNCTION*, while sacrificing a little more in
formal resemblance to the original type style when
using default fonts. (Of course a specialized font
could get the exact shape required.)
By the way, I would *not* advise making use of U+0345
COMBINING IOTA BELOW for this, as that doesn't really
share either function or form with this particular
hook, and has completely wrong properties as well.
--Ken
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