Wait - if Sarati was never actually the subject of an encoding proposal, how did it get Not the Roadmap-ed?
- Vikki McDonough 🏳️⚧️ On Tue, May 26, 2026, 6:26 PM Rebecca Bettencourt <[email protected]> wrote: > I don't know about Sarati. It's likely still small enough that Unicode > doesn't consider it notable or to have a large enough community. Also I'm > not aware of any recent proposals submitted for it. Unicode seems > uninterested in removing anything from the Not The Roadmap unless it is > close to actually being encoded, lest it create a false impression. > > -- Rebecca Bettencourt > > > On Tue, May 26, 2026 at 4:03 PM Vikki McDonough <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Sarati (which dates from the 1910s) has *also* passed into the public >> domain, though, and yet *it*'s still on the Not the Roadmap wall of shame. >> >> >> - Vikki McDonough 🏳️⚧️ >> >> On Tue, May 26, 2026, 5:58 PM Rebecca Bettencourt <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> Often those scripts have already passed into the public domain, have >>> been released into the public domain by their creators, or their creators >>> have explicitly given their permission to encode them. >>> >>> -- Rebecca Bettencourt >>> >>> >>> On Tue, May 26, 2026 at 3:53 PM Vikki McDonough <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> If a script could be copyrighted, wouldn't that preclude the encoding >>>> of *any* script created in the last century or so (N'Ko, Osage, Adlam, >>>> Nyiakeng Puachue Hmong, SignWriting, Garay, Shavian...)? >>>> >>>> >>>> - Vikki McDonough 🏳️⚧️ >>>> >>>> On Tue, May 26, 2026, 5:32 PM Rebecca Bettencourt <[email protected]> >>>> 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. >>>>> >>>>> As for Sitelen Pona, it is still relatively new and unstable: people >>>>> are still experimenting with new features, new characters, and new glyph >>>>> variants, and the people who came together to write the most recent >>>>> preliminary proposal are still stuck in constant arguments over which >>>>> characters to propose. Unicode actually ran into concerns about stability >>>>> a >>>>> few years ago when they needed to update the representative glyphs for >>>>> Adlam because it had changed slightly since it was encoded. Unicode >>>>> doesn't >>>>> want to have to update a script every year. >>>>> >>>>> Most recently, the UTC in its most recent meeting actually had a >>>>> discussion on how to support newly-created scripts. They suggested that >>>>> the >>>>> Script Encoding Working Group and the Script Encoding Initiative work >>>>> together to develop "support for neoscripts" using "software packages" >>>>> that >>>>> can override character properties for Private Use Area characters. Whether >>>>> this will actually happen I have doubts, and it's likely more for the sake >>>>> of minority languages than conlangs, but it's still a positive sign. >>>>> >>>>> -- Rebecca Bettencourt >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Tue, May 26, 2026 at 2:09 PM Vikki McDonough via Unicode < >>>>> [email protected]> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Hai all! >>>>>> >>>>>> No offense meant to anyone personally, but why does Unicode seem to >>>>>> be biased against scripts devised for conlangs? To the best of my >>>>>> knowledge, *every single time* such a script's been proposed for >>>>>> inclusion, it's ultimately been rejected (albeit with different levels of >>>>>> vehemence - Klingon and Sarati both ended up on the Not the Roadmap hall >>>>>> of >>>>>> shame [Klingon from each of *two separate* proposals], Sitelen Pona >>>>>> was merely rejected, and Tengwar and Corth actually made it into the >>>>>> roadmap to the SMP only to languish there for years before eventually >>>>>> being >>>>>> removed earlier this spring), even for those (like Klingon) with an >>>>>> active >>>>>> user base considerably larger than those of some obscure natural-language >>>>>> scripts that *do* get encoded. (In contrast, conlangs that use an >>>>>> existing script do *occasionally* get their language-specific >>>>>> letters encoded, such as the Volapük-specific Latin letters already >>>>>> published in Unicode.) >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> - Vikki McDonough 🏳️⚧️ >>>>>> >>>>>
