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

Peter Kirk peter.r.kirk at ntlworld.com
Thu Jun 26 13:31:34 EDT 2003


Peter_Constable at sil.org wrote:

>Peter Kirk wrote on 06/26/2003 12:58:13 PM:
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>>Hold on, you just said I couldn't use 200D = ZWJ in such a case because 
>>it introduces a word boundary.
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>Sorry, I was working from memory, and got codepoints wrong. You mentioned 
>FEFF (ZWNBSP), so I was thinking of ZWSP (200B, right?).
>
That's right. Well, if ZWJ  or ZWNJ is possible, why not solve the 
problem with one of them? The general syntax could be X ZW(N)J Y 
indicating that vowel or point Y is to be left of vowel or point X 
regardless of canonical ordering. Would that be a valid interpretation 
of Unicode?

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>>>It is not trivial if it has to be done hundreds of times while 
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>rendering a 
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>>>screen of text.
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>>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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>I'm just relaying what the coders have said to me.
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>>>But it's unlikely that rendering systems and fonts will make any order 
>>>display correctly.
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>>I thought Unicode specified that canonically equivalent text should be 
>>displayed the same. Is this correct?
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>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.
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>>>Again, this proposal has been considered by many and represents a joint 
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>>>consensus among content providers and implementers; and the issues are 
>>>still being discussed, with alternatives such as you have mentioned 
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>being 
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>>>considered.
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>>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?
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>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?
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>>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.
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>Yes, though see above -- it would probably be easier for me to be in the 
>loop.
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>Blessings, and see you all on the flip side...
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>- Peter
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>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Peter Constable
>
>Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International
>7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA
>Tel: +1 972 708 7485
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OK, Peter, have a good vacation, and I will leave off introducing this 
to other lists until you return. But I won't forget about it.

It's hard to know exactly who is on the b-hebrew list, only to know who 
is active. Kirk Lowery will know as he is a moderator. Probably none of 
the top names, but if this gets seen as a serious issue it will make its 
way to the top. Meanwhile I will have to think what to do about it. 
First I can see if there is other feedback on this list.

-- 
Peter Kirk
peter.r.kirk at ntlworld.com
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~peterkirk/




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