On Mon, May 1, 2017 at 7:26 AM Naena Guru via Unicode <unicode@unicode.org> wrote:
> This whole attempt to make digitizing Indic script some esoteric, > 'abstract', 'semantic representation' and so on seems to me is an attempt > to make Unicode the realm of the some super humans. > Unicode is like writing. At its core, it is a hairy esoteric mess; mix these certain chemicals the right ways, and prepare a writing implement and writing surface in the right (non-trivial) ways, and then manipulate that implement carefully to make certain marks that have unclear delimitations between correct and incorrect. But in the end, as much of that is removed from the problem of the user as possible; in the case of modern word-processing system, it's a matter of hitting the keys and then hitting print, in complete ignorance of all the silicon and printing magic going on between. Unicode is not the realm of everyone; it's the realm of people with a certain amount of linguistic knowledge and computer knowledge. There's only a problem if those people can't make it usable for the everyday programmer and therethrough to the average person. > The purpose of writing is to represent speech. > Meh. The purpose of writing is to represent language, which may be unrelated to speech (like in the case of SignWriting and mathematics) or somewhat related to speech--very few forms of writing are direct transcriptions of speech. Even the closest tend to exchange a lot of intonation details for punctuation that reveals different information. > English writing was massacred when printing was brought in from Europe. > No, it wasn't. Printing made no difference to the fact that English has a dozen vowels with five letters to write them. The thorn has little impact on the ambiguity of English writing. The problem with printing is that it fossilizes the written language, and our spellings have stayed the same while the pronunciations have changed. And the dissociation of sound and writing sometimes helps English; even when two English speakers from different parts of the world would have trouble understanding each other, writing is usually not so impaired.