Re: What is U+0E46 THAI CHARACTER MAIYAMOK?

On Thu, Feb 8, 2018 at 11:16 AM, James Kass via Unicode
<unicode_at_unicode.org> wrote:
> In the example, "ประดัก ๆ", there's a space character in the text,
> which seems right. There's no space between MAIYAMOK and the closing
> quotation mark, which also seems right. If a font included extra
> spacing around MAIYAMOK, the display of something like...
> THAI CHARACTER MAIYAMOK (ๆ)
> ...would be off, I'd think.

I think the thin space in the glyph is a hack, not the norm.

The regulation as defined by the Thai Royal Institute
is to use a space or thin space before MAIYAMOK.
And if it's followed by a word, use another space after.

But the current uses are not consistent. For example:
- ต่างๆนานา (without space at all)
- ต่าง ๆ นานา (with space before and after, as regulated)
- ต่างๆ นานา (without space before, but with one after)

The argument for not using space before MAIYAMOK
is that most like break algorithms will break line before it,
tearing it apart from its associated word, which is
undesirable.

To mitigate this, while fullfilling the regulation when
printed, some font creators hack the leading space
into the glyph and suggest their users not to prepend
a space before MAIYAMOK at all.

But the hack also affects people who follow the regulation,
as they get too wide space between the word and
MAIYAMOK.

An apparent way to do it properly is to use NBSP before
MAIYAMOK and a normal space after, and not to include
any leading space in the glyph, but it seems inconvenent
to input NBSP in common text editors.

>> ... when the Thai punctuation mark mai yamok (ไม้ยมก)
>> is used with words, it is flanked by spaces, ...
>
> Is there a contrasting use where this mark is not used with words?
> Maybe numbers?

None. MAIYAMOK is only used with words by definition.

Regards,

-- 
Theppitak Karoonboonyanan
http://linux.thai.net/~thep/