[Biblical-languages] Unicode proposals for apparatus symbols,
Biblical Hebrew
Peter Kirk
peter.r.kirk at ntlworld.com
Thu Jun 26 11:58:13 EDT 2003
Peter_Constable at sil.org wrote:
>Peter Kirk wrote on 06/26/2003 09:11:40 AM:
>
>
>
>>I am disappointed that you have taken this proposal so far without
>>discussing it with this list, or with a former colleague like myself.
>>Indeed I would suggest that this makes a mockery of your answers: "2a.
>>Has contact been made to members of the user community? Yes 2b. With
>>whom? Biblical Hebrew researchers, content providers of materials
>>related to Biblical Hebrew". At least it seems that this significant
>>community of such people, of whom you are well aware, has been kept in
>>the dark, while the once sensible proposals you were working on a year
>>or so ago have been turned into something which is at least to me quite
>>unacceptable.
>>
>>
>
>This was discussed with several members of this list, as the list of
>proposers on the proposal indicates. I'm sorry you weren't included in the
>discussion; it's just the way it happened, and I didn't have time to make
>sure a wider audience reviewed it.
>
OK, I understand the problem and accept your apology. Anyway for a time
I was rather out of the loop, but I am back in it now, finalising an OT
translation and probably soon returning to the KTBH project - which will
be a significant user of Unicode Hebrew.
>As for the merits of the proposed solution...
>
>
>
>>Is changing the
>>existing combining classes really unthinkable?
>>
>>
>
>Yes. That absolutely will not happen...
>
I understand this now.
<snip>
>>But there are alternative solutions to the problem which, though messy,
>>are not as bad as your proposal for a complete new set of characters;
>>
>>1) For the vowels... this issue could be solved by adding a non-printing
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>base character representing an omitted or "phantom" consonant.
>>
>>
>
>Yes, that is another possibility, and could still be proposed.
>
>
>
>
>>This is
>>also required in some Ketib/Qere cases (Qere without Ketib) where vowel
>>points are found without consonants e.g. at Ruth 3:17.
>>
>>
>
>I'm in Vancouver, and don't have BHS with me, so I can't look at this, but
>if it's a case of points over/under a space between other consonants, that
>would have to be a distinct character from what you propose above --
>another that I have been planning to propose.
>
This is more or less what I am talking about. In fact this is a word
with no consonants at all, just the space for two of them and the vowel
points to go with them. The difference is mostly that this case is not
zero width, but that may be a matter of rendering i.e. the width is what
is required for the diacritics - though printed a bit wider than that in
BHS.
>
>
>
>
>>So this would
>>require one extra character to be added to Unicode; or could some
>>existing character be used e.g. FEFF or 200D?
>>
>>
>
>No; those would have the wrong properties, introducing a word boundary
>where none should exist.
>
>
>Another suggestion that has been raised in current discussion elsewhere is
>to simply have a character that is notionally ZERO WIDTH CANONICAL
>REORDERING INHIBITER. It's a kludge, but it would work, and would provide
>a solution for both multiple vowels and meteg.
>
This sounds like a useful kludge to me, if you can get it past the
committees. I would see this approach as a lot less objectionable than
your proposal, and a lot less disruptive as this means a change in
relatively few places, not in every vowel in the Hebrew Bible.
<snip>
>Re the third position for hataf vowels, those of use working on
>implementations have already agreed on a solution, proposed by John
>Hudson, using ZWNJ to give meteg left of a vowel (medial is default, being
>most common).
>
>
Hold on, you just said I couldn't use 200D = ZWJ in such a case because
it introduces a word boundary. So is it OK then to use 200C = ZWNJ? And
if here, why not between the vowels in Jerusalem etc?
>
>
>
>>3) For holam and shin/sin dot: This tidying up part of the proposal
>>makes sense if the other parts of the proposal are accepted but not if
>>the other parts are withdrawn. The new order would of course be an
>>improvement if used for all Hebrew, but not if applied only to biblical
>>Hebrew in the way you propose. Meanwhile the processing speed objection
>>should be disregarded as the processing time required to sort a list of
>>up to six characters is simply trivial;
>>
>>
>
>It is not trivial if it has to be done hundreds of times while rendering a
>screen of text.
>
I still suspect this has to do with efficiency of implementation. If a
rendering engine requires this to be done as a series of top level
passes programmed by the user, yes it will be inefficient. If
normalisation is tightly coded into the depths of the rendering engine,
it will be extremely quick, especially as it can probably be driven by
some kind of hash table rather than as an algorithm.
>
>
>
>
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>>Anyway, the proposal doesn't fix this problem for modern Hebrew texts
>>and so an efficient solution will still be required.
>>
>>
>
>The problem isn't as much of a concern for modern Hebrew texts.
>
>
>
>
>>As for usability,
>>users can type in the characters in any order and the result is still
>>valid Unicode
>>
>>
>
>But it's unlikely that rendering systems and fonts will make any order
>display correctly.
>
I thought Unicode specified that canonically equivalent text should be
displayed the same. Is this correct? This implies that a rendering
engine is obliged to display any order correctly. Of course this doesn't
mandate efficiency, but a good rendering engine design should be able to
cope reasonably well.
>
>
>
>
>>I would urge you to withdraw this proposal and prepare a new one on the
>>lines I suggest here, in consultation with this list and with others.
>>
>>
>
>Again, this proposal has been considered by many and represents a joint
>consensus among content providers and implementers; and the issues are
>still being discussed, with alternatives such as you have mentioned being
>considered.
>
Count me as one preferring the alternatives. It would be interesting to
see what the preferences are among Hebrew scholars, including Jewish
ones. Any objections if I present this to the b-hebrew list?
>
>
>
>>I note that this proposal does not deal with some other characters
>>needed for biblical Hebrew, specifically inverted nun (SIL Ezra 078,
>>M-C/WTS N]8) and lower dot (SIL Ezra 179, M-C/WTS 53). I hope these
>>issues have not been forgotten.
>>
>>
>
>No. I did not have time to prepare such a proposal before this past UTC,
>and intend to prepare such a proposal. It would not have been a good idea
>to combine the two into one.
>
>
>
>- Peter
>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Peter Constable
>
>Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International
>7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA
>Tel: +1 972 708 7485
>
>_______________________________________________
>
>
>
I see one important point which you haven't dealt with, and that is the
artificiality of the division your proposal makes between biblical and
modern Hebrew. I would expect this to be unacceptable to Hebrew
scholars, especially Israeli ones. But I would like to ask some of them
on the b-hebrew list etc, if that's OK.
--
Peter Kirk
peter.r.kirk at ntlworld.com
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~peterkirk/
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