On 3/25/2017 3:15 PM, David Starner
wrote:
And we *can* distinguish i and j in that Latin text, because
we have separate characters encoded for it. And we *have*
encoded many other Latin ligature-based letters and sigla of
various kinds for the representation of medieval European
texts. Indeed, that’s just a stronger argument for
distinguishing the ligature-based letters for Deseret, I
think.
And I'd argue that a good theoretical model of the Latin
script makes ä, ꞛ and aͤ the same character, distinguished
only by the font.
The latter is patent nonsense, because ä and aͤ are even less
related to each other than "i" and "j"; never mind the fact that
their forms are both based on the letter "a". Encoding and font
choice should be seen as separate.
The priority in encoding has to be with allowing distinctions in
modern texts, or distinctions that matter to modern users of
historic writing systems. Beyond that, theoretical analysis of
typographical evolution can give some interesting insight, but I
would be in the camp that does not accord them a status as primary
rationale for encoding decisions.
Thus, critical need for contrasting use of the glyph distinctions
would have to be established before it makes sense to discuss this
further.
I see no principled objection to having a font choice result in a
noticeable or structural glyph variation for only a few elements of
an alphabet. We have handle-a vs. bowl-a as well as hook-g vs.
loop-g in Latin, and fonts routinely select one or the other. (It is
only for usage outside normal text that the distinction between
these forms matters).
While the Deseret forms are motivated by their pronunciation, I'm
not necessarily convinced that the distinction has any practical
significance that is in any way different than similar differences
in derivation (e.g. for long s-s or long-s-z for German esszett).
In fact, it would seem that if a Deseret text was encoded in one of
the two systems, changing to a different font would have the
attractive property of preserving the content of the text (while not
preserving the appearance). This, in a nutshell, is the criterion
for making something a font difference vs. an encoding distinction.
A./
PS:
This is complicated by combining characters mostly
identified by glyph, and the fact that while ä and aͤ may be
the same character across time, there are people wanting to
distinguish them in the same text today, and in both cases
the theoretical falls to the practical. In this case, there
are no combining character issues and there's nobody needing
to use the two forms in the same text.
huh?
Received on Sun Mar 26 2017 - 10:45:40 CDT