Post by Peter KirkPost by Michael EversonEGYPTOLOGICAL AYIN? I don't think it is either U+02BD or U+02BF.
The former is a reversed comma, the latter a half-ring. And neither
has a capital, as the Egyptological character has.
Michael, it is very clear to me that the Egyptological ayin is
modelled in its glyph as well as its name on the ayin used in
transliteration of Hebrew, Arabic etc.
Well, *I* gave it its name. And as to the glyph, having an original
model in something does not mean that an entity has not budded off
into its own letterness. ;-)
Post by Peter KirkThe slightly variant shape in Gardiner is simply because all the
transliterations in Gardiner are in italics and so the visible glyph
is an italic reversed comma.
I disagree. Gardiner uses plenty of commas throughout his work, and
they are normal, raised, comma-sized commas. The EGYPTOLOGICAL AYIN
is much longer, reaching from just above the baseline to x-height.
There is no chance that it is just an italic reversed comma. A
revised proposal will show examples indicating this.
Post by Peter KirkAs for the casing distinction, I wonder if this is in fact unique to
Gardiner. If so, perhaps a PUA character is appropriate.
For Egyptian? Certainly not. Gardiner is essential in Egyptology, and
I would consider plain-text representation of his texts to be
essential. Whether it is unique to him or not, his work is seminal.
Post by Peter KirkBut no doubt Paul Cowie can advise on whether this is a widely used.
If it is, I would suggest adding one new character for an upper case
ayin rather than a new pair.
I don't think that the apostrophe-ayin is the lower-case of this
character, even if it refers to the same *sound*.
Post by Peter KirkPost by Michael EversonThe Egyptological characters are quite different from the other
modifier letters used for Arabic and Hebrew. Alef in general
Semitics looks like a right single quotation mark or a right-half
ring. Egyptological Alef looks like two right-half rings one over
the other, and usually these are connected. This is clearly a novel
letter.
Right.
Post by Peter KirkPost by Michael EversonAnd while Semitic Ayin is often represented with either U+02BB or
U+02BF, neither of those are casing. To my mind, the Egyptological
letters exist in one-to-one relation with Gardiner G1 'Egyptian
vulture' (ALEF), M17 'flowering reed' (YOD) and 36 'forearm' (AYIN)
apart from the casing which has been added in modern editorial
practice.
We need to encode modern editorial practice. And it is not just Gardiner.
Post by Peter KirkWell, the one to one correspondences are not nearly so simple e.g.
there are many other hieroglyphic characters which represent a group
of consonants including alef, yod or ayin.
Cleopatra's name is written with an Egyptian cup; modern editors
encode K or k for that cup depending on context, the capital being
used for proper names. That's why Gardiner cased Egyptian alef, ayin,
and yod. It's that novel *Latin* practice which is proposed for
encoding.
Post by Peter KirkPost by Michael EversonPost by Peter KirkOr would U+021D or U+025C be suitable for your 3?
U+021D is yogh, which is what it is. It is not an Alef, and the
resemblance is only superficial. And U+025C is a reverse epsilon,
not an Alef.
Well, I am confused. You are rejecting some alternatives because of
different shaped glyphs for the same function and others because of
different functions with essentially the same shape.
The YOGH is NOT essentially the same shape as the EGYPTOLOGICAL ALEF,
any more than DIGIT THREE or LATIN SMALL LETTER REVERSE OPEN E is.
Neither is EGYPTOLOGICAL AYIN the same shape as U+02BD MODIFIER
LETTER REVERSED COMMA. Even if it was derived from that, it has its
own attributes now which make it different. Like size and casing..
Post by Peter KirkWhat are the criteria for adding new Latin characters to Unicode? Do
they have to be novel in function, novel in shape, or just one or
the other?
For my part I look at the etymology or origin of the character. I
recognize (some do not) that sometimes a letter is borrowed from
another script and naturalized. I look at how the character
functions, what kinds of glyphs are OK for it. The Egyptological
characters all are unique enough to merit encoding.
Post by Peter KirkPost by Michael EversonPost by Peter Kirkthe sign used for yod (looks like a i with a right ring tick above it)
This one looks rather like U+1EC9 though I am not sure if the hook
above is quite the right shape for you. You might prefer a regular
i followed by U+0357 COMBINING RIGHT HALF RING ABOVE. Or maybe
U+0313 would be preferred, this is the Greek smooth breathing and
looks like a comma.
None of the above.
But the Egyptological glyph is apparently identical to one or other
of these. We really can't go down the road of encoding combining
marks by detailed function.
I don't think it is apparently identical to either a half ring (it is
more than half a ring), or apparently identical to the combining
apostrophe. It is, hm, more moon-like than anything. No, I don't
think it's the Vietnamese tone mark either.
Post by Peter KirkIf so we will have to disunify acute accent into all sorts of
different things: a marker of closer articulation (French), of
stress (many languages including modern Greek), of tone (classical
Greek and African languages) etc etc.
I don't follow that logic at all.
Post by Peter KirkOr else we can note that the Egyptolological mark is identical in
shape to either U+0357 or U+0313 and so use the existing mark.
It is not identical to either. I do not want to add a combining
Egyptological ring-thingy to Unicode. It is not a productive mark. A
capital and small letter i with a deformed dot is what's needed,
that's all.
--
Michael Everson * * Everson Typography * * http://www.evertype.com
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
KnowledgeStorm has over 22,000 B2B technology solutions. The most comprehensive IT buyers' information available. Research, compare, decide. E-Commerce | Application Dev | Accounting-Finance | Healthcare | Project Mgt | Sales-Marketing | More
http://us.click.yahoo.com/IMai8D/UYQGAA/cIoLAA/8FfwlB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->
To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: unicode-***@yahooGroups.com
This mailing list is just an archive. The instructions to join the true Unicode List are on http://www.unicode.org/unicode/consortium/distlist.html
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/