Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 19/01/2004 09:56, Trevor Peterson wrote:

> Peter wrote:
>
>  
>
> > Indeed Unicode has design problems. But design problems won't stop it 
> > becoming a universal standard. The major software companies, 
> > publishers 
> > etc are not going to reverse their strategy because of minor problems 
> > with a few rare accents in one dead language.
> >    
>
> Perhaps not, but since when have the inclinations of major software
> companies driven scholarly practice? How many of us who aren't fluent in
> Israeli Hebrew used the national encoding before Unicode came along? We
> used transliteration fonts, and they did the job. ...
They did the job for a time, but only as long as biblical Hebrew 
scholars could sit in their own small corner and ignore anything being 
done in other varieties of Hebrew, even ignore what their own colleagues 
were doing. Now the relics of these non-standard transliteration fonts 
are causing no end of trouble. Literally. I and my former SIL colleagues 
have spent man-years trying to sort out the incredible mess that these 
old practices have caused, every person doing what is right in their own 
eyes, and there is no end to the task in sight. Well, perhaps there is 
an end in sight, but the only possible end is for EVERYONE to follow 
Unicode, whether they like it or not. If not, we are straight back to 
the aftermath of the Tower of Babel.

> ... It was something small
> enough and specialized enough that we could make our own decisions about
> the technology we would use. Why should that have to change, just
> because Unicode exists?
>
>  
If all the Hebrew users in the world (biblical scholars, Israelis, Jews 
around the world, etc) could get together and make their own decisions 
on a single technology which they could all use, that would be fine, as 
they could then share their data. But the only conceivable way in which 
such a diverse bunch could work together is through international 
standards bodies. Those bodies have done their work, and have presented 
a good workable solution for all Hebrew users - which is Unicode. Why 
not use it? Why are some people determined to badmouth it?

> > Unicode is 
> > coming, whether 
> > we like it or not, so we had better get ready for it. We should never 
> > expect it to be ideal for scholars, and so we need to be 
> > ready to work 
> > round its limitations; nevertheless, it is potential much better than 
> > any existing solutions.
> >    
>
> How so? What can it do that we couldn't do without it? About the only
> place where I can see that it makes a tangible difference is in Web
> development.
>  
How about communicate with Hebrew users in Israel and with Jews 
worldwide? How about communicate with colleagues who prefer SIL Ezra 
while you are using SP Tiberian, or vice versa? How about make use of 
the large range of Unicode fonts which are already available (though not 
many support accents properly yet)? How about use all the nice Hebrew 
language support provided by OSs and standard software? How about 
getting proper bidirectional behaviour e.g. word wrapping with RTL text 
instead of being able to view text only in a fixed width window because 
all line breaks have to be hard coded? Is that enough reasons?

> ...
>
> > This is not so much because of technical limitations, more 
> > because not 
> > all list users are prepared to upgrade their software (even when 
> > upgrades are free) to support Unicode.
> >    
>
> Well, then for them it's a technical limitation. If writing my own
> program were the only option available for me to get a certain thing
> done, and I didn't know how to program, I would call that a technical
> limitation. For someone who isn't "prepared to upgrade," it's a
> technical limitation in the same sense. Yes, the technology is there.
> But if a significant number of people aren't prepared to use it, it's
> still a limitation for the field. And if Unicode's only major advantage
> is ubiquity, such limitations are relevant.
>
>  
If people want to communicate with the world, they need to be prepared 
to speak the world's language. They can't use e-mail lists at all if 
they don't have access to a computer; it is not unreasonable to expect 
them to keep their computers up to date. It's not usually a matter of 
cost, although I accept that some older computers (e.g. pre-1998) are 
not able to support Unicode Hebrew well. And there are still some 
problems with MacOS and some other OSs. But within a very few years 
there will be no good reason not to use Unicode as the main Hebrew 
encoding on lists like this one - as I am trying out below.

שָׁלוֹם, Peter

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/