[Biblical-languages] Unicode proposals for apparatus symbols, Biblical Hebrew

Peter_Constable at sil.org Peter_Constable at sil.org
Thu Jun 26 15:11:45 EDT 2003


Peter Kirk wrote on 06/26/2003 12:58:13 PM:

> Hold on, you just said I couldn't use 200D = ZWJ in such a case because 
> it introduces a word boundary.

Sorry, I was working from memory, and got codepoints wrong. You mentioned 
FEFF (ZWNBSP), so I was thinking of ZWSP (200B, right?).


> >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.

I'm just relaying what the coders have said to me.



> >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?

I can't recall for certain now what it does or doesn't say, though 
obviously the intent is that different canonically equivalent sequences 
ought to be display the same. But, for font developers, the number of 
permutations to deal with when you've got four or five marks in different 
combining classes (120 permutations for five) is a lot, and not trivial to 
implement. I had told Joan that all possible orders should be supported in 
Ezra, but she and Ralph balked at that, as have other implementers.



> >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?

Can you tell me who among Hebrew scholars is on that list? I need to 
interact with such a group, and so perhaps should join the list before you 
present it there. I'm starting vacation, though (so what am I doing 
writing this? In about two minutes, I'll probably disappear for several 
days), and won't be back in Dallas until the 9th. Could you hold on until 
after I get back?



> 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.

Yes, though see above -- it would probably be easier for me to be in the 
loop.


Blessings, and see you all on the flip side...



- Peter


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Constable

Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA
Tel: +1 972 708 7485



More information about the Biblical-languages mailing list