The reality is that most users do not make the distinction, and the distinction is not at all similar to the U and V situation. It may be similar to what happened with U and V in early times, when some scribes decided they want to make the distinction, before it was generally accepted these are distinct letters.
With Hebrew, it is not accepted that it is a different Vav - letters used as matres lectionis are not distinct from the same letters used otherwise. Neither is it accepted that this is a different Holam. The only thing established is that this artifact has been used in several manuscripts, one of many similar artifacts, to aid the understanding of the text. And the correct vehicle to convey such artifacts is markup. Jony > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Peter Kirk > Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 4:32 PM > To: Karljrgen Feuerherm > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Back to Hebrew, was OT:darn'd fools > > > On 29/07/2003 06:11, Karljürgen Feuerherm wrote: > > >Well, that was precisely the question. Are we talking about a mere > >preference of visual effect or an actual difference in (original) > >text--that is, an intended semantic differentiation? > > > >K > > > > > I don't agree that ancient history should necessarily determine this. > It's a bit like the distinction between U and V in English, in fact > closely analogous phonetically. As originally used in English > they were > one character. But I don't think that would justify an argument that > they should now be encoded as one character and distinguished only by > context or markup. In current usage they are clearly > distinct, and that > should be decisive. > > Unfortunately it is not quite so clear for Hebrew as usage > varies. But > the fact that many do not make the distinction is not an > argument that > others who prefer to make the distinction should not be > allowed to. K, I > don't think you French Canadians would be very happy if > accented upper > case vowels were removed from Unicode because they are not used in > France. (I must find some way to divide you from the real > French :-) ) > > -- > Peter Kirk > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://web.onetel.net.uk/~peterkirk/ > > > > >
