(Sidenote, how come only part of this thread's showing up on the public mailing-list archive?)
- Vikki McDonough 🏳️⚧️ On Tue, May 26, 2026, 6:41 PM Vikki McDonough <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > - 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 >> >>
