- Vikki McDonough 🏳️⚧️ ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Vikki McDonough <[email protected]> Date: Tue, May 26, 2026, 6:27 PM Subject: Re: Seeming hostility to conlang scripts? To: Mark E. Shoulson <[email protected]>
Worrying about being seen as nerds by adding a particular script *to the massive text-encoding system for unifying the computer representation of most of the writing systems on Earth **that you've already built* seems to me like a case of locking the barn door after the horse's bolted, fled the county, had a nice bunch of foals, and been turned into glue. - Vikki McDonough 🏳️⚧️ On Tue, May 26, 2026, 5:57 PM Mark E. Shoulson via Unicode < [email protected]> wrote: > On 5/26/26 6:32 PM, Rebecca Bettencourt via Unicode wrote: > > Unicode's "hostility" to conlang scripts has actually been > > *decreasing* over the years. Such proposals used to be rejected > > outright for not being notable or not having a large enough user > > community. That is not the case anymore. Klingon, Sitelen Pona, > > Tengwar, and Cirth have all actually been recognized as having a large > > enough user community; the objections being raised now are actually > > much more complicated issues to navigate: copyright status and stability. > > > > Unicode does not want to include Klingon without a letter from > > Paramount's legal department stating that they will not sue anyone who > > implements it, but Paramount simply does not care enough to spend > > legal resources on that. Tengwar and Cirth are in the hands of the > > Tolkien estate, which is extremely controlling about the use of their > > intellectual property and is not going to give permission to encode > > them. And while it's legally questionable whether a writing system can > > actually be copyrighted, Unicode does not have the resources to find out. > > It should be noted, though, that the only *official* reason for > rejection of Klingon is still "because we don't want to be associated > with Those Kinds of People." The proposal to reject Klingon > (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2001/01212-RejectKlingon.html), adopted by > Unicode (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2001/01183.htm) mentions nothing > about IP problems or lack of usage. This remains the reason it is on > the "Not to be Encoded" list, even though (at the suggestion of Ken > Whistler https://unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2016-m11/0091.html) > there was a proposal not to approve it, but just to remove it from the > "No" list (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2021/21155-klingon-req.pdf) > Removing it from the "Not Encoded" list would have been a way to signal > a lessening of hostility without actually doing anything (and thus > without running risks of IP problems.) > > Has the hostility been decreasing over the years? Perhaps, even > probably. There has been unofficial recognition that "lack of usage" is > no longer a valid argument against Klingon (after a new proposal, > https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2016/16329-piqad-returns.pdf showed a great > deal of usage.) But there still seems to be something in the "dignity > argument" (Klingon is beneath the dignity of Unicode, because only nerds > speak it), brought down explicitly in the Proposal to Reject linked > above and on this mailing list > https://corp.unicode.org/pipermail/unicode/2021-September/009589.html > > AFAIK, Sitelen Pona is, indeed, insufficiently fleshed out (but I may > not be well-enough informed), and the Tolkien estate has come out > explicitly against the encoding of Cirth and Tengwar (which I think > deserve encoding more than Klingon does, but whose IP situation is > rather more clear against it.) > > Several new writing systems which have been encoded are no older than > some conlang scripts, like Adlam (1989), Osage (2006), Signwriting > (1974) (and honestly, the IP status of some of them is not clear either, > though it's definitely an issue in things like Blissymbolics and I think > maybe Mandombe), so it clearly isn't a matter of needing to be an *old* > established system... just an established one, and these did demonstrate > usage and a community. > > So, yeah, the hostility may be on the decline. It's still the official > stance, though. > > ~mark > >
