On Thursday, July 31, 2003 5:06 PM, John Cowan wrote: > Ted Hopp scripsit: > > 1. It corresponds to standard Hebrew grammar. > > 2. It would be simple and easy to explain to users, edit, handle in > > keyboards, etc. > > It would be no problem to have a "holam male" key that generated two > consecutive Unicode characters.
True, but what about editing? Should a backspace delete both characters or just one? Quite a dilemma: have the "right holam" combining character be handled differently by the software from other combining characters (thus adding to the job security of code maintainers) or have the "insert character-backspace" sequence be a no-op (from a user's perspective) for all keystrokes except holam male. Nasty. And avoidable. > > 3. A combining mark for holam male would be applicable to a vav and only to > > a vav. It seems needlessly complicated and arcane to create a combining mark > > for the sole purpose of creating exactly one sequence that uses it. > > How would one encode an isolated aleph with a right holam over it, when > explaining fine Hebrew typographical rules? The current context-dependent > mechanisms are suitable for ordinary use of aleph with right holam, > but not for cases like this, as far as I understand. What is this with a right holam on an alef? There is no such thing. As people have pointed out before, all such examples should be interpreted (and encoded) as a holam haser combined with the consonant preceding the alef. It certainly doesn't exist in isolation. The "right holam" is an invention of this discussion. With a separate holam male character, the entire issue goes away. > > 4. A combining mark sequence would invite the creation of a new presentation > > form (or else changing the decomposition of FB4B). > > Neither of those things is going to happen. The UTC will not encode > any new presentation forms, any new decomposable characters, or change > any decompositions. Death before dishonor. :-) A holam male character wouldn't be decomposable if there weren't a "right holam" combining mark. Ted Ted Hopp, Ph.D. ZigZag, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] +1-301-990-7453 newSLATE is your personal learning workspace ...on the web at http://www.newSLATE.com/
