Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Polycarp66 AT aol.com]

In a message dated 1/20/2004 10:22:24 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
kwrandolph AT email.com writes:

> Whether I like it or not, unicode is on the way to be the new standard. I 
> see no reason to develop a new transliteration scheme.
> 
> My main computer is a 486 vintage Macintosh running OS 8.1 because it is a 
> notebook and at my side when I need it. But it is not unicode capable. It 
> is 
> no longer a question of if, but when I can afford to upgrade. If I am to 
> continue the sort of research and work that I do, it will have to be in 
> unicode, 
> and communicated in unicode so that all can understand it. I am working not 
> only in Hebrew, but also Chinese and other non-Latin based writing systems.
> 
> Already, when I see some complex transliteration scheme in my mailbox that 
> I 
> do not understand, I follow the Tanakh reference and open my Bible program 
> to read it in the Hebrew font which I understand, whereas I often don’t 
> understand the transliteration. It is only a matter of time before B-Hebrew 
> mailing 
> list will be in unicode (unicode long ago was already able to handle 
> unpointed text like which I prefer).
> 
> As for file formats, when I want to make sure that all my readers can open 
> it, I send it as a .pdf attachment. At this time it looks as if it is 
> easier 
> to fix what remains of unicode than to develop a new transliteration scheme 
> used world-wide.
> 
_________

Hear, hear!

Who cares about transliteration schemes.  It's only a stop-gap measure.  When 
I see a discussion on b-hebrew I open my BHS and check to see that we're 
talking about the same passage.  Then I ignore the transliteration.  I do the 
same 
in b-greek.  That's why I am rather impatient with this discussion.  It's 
much ado about nothing.

gfsomsel