On Wednesday, July 30, 2003 5:20 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Ted Hopp wrote on 07/29/2003 01:20:08 PM: > > The two vowels kholam male and shuruq have nothing to do with the > consonant > > vav (HEBREW LETTER VAV) other than that they are written with the same > > glyph. > > If they are written with the same glyph, then they are written with the > same character. Unicode encodes characters, not phonemes. There is probably > some language for which "x" is used to represent a vowel, or perhaps a > tone, but we don't need to encode two (or three) "x" characters. Sorry, but > I think the reasoning here is wrong.
Sorry, that was sloppy wording. What I meant (and tried to make it clear later in the message) was that they both involved the use of the vav glyph. But, obviously, neither kholam male nor shuruq are fully represented by a vav glyph alone (in pointed text). > > Hebrew characters are used for > > much more than spelling Hebrew words. > > And, apparently, for more than one phoneme; but we still encode the > characters but once. > > > These different uses for the same (or approximately same) glyphs > > Well, are the glyphs the same, or only approximately the same? > > > Other typographic curiosities: The HEBREW POINT QAMATS [05B8] is used for > > two Hebrew vowels... > > > The same comment goes for HEBREW POINT SHEVA... > > Same response. I raised four cases that involve semantically distinct characters, but Unicode provides only a single (normalized) representation: kholam male vs. vav with kholam khaser shuruq vs. vav with dagesh sheva na vs. sheva nakh qamats katan vs. qamats gadol All four cases involve differences in phonemic value (usually; in some Hebrew accents, the fourth case has no phonemic difference, although I believe a difference in terminology is still maintained). In all four cases, there are documented instances of the differences being phonemic only (i.e., identical rendering within each case). However, in three of the four cases (shuruq vs. vav with dagesh is the exception), there are documented instances of typographic as well as phonemic differences. These cases are most often found where precision of pronunciation is a priority: sacred and liturgical texts; poetry; educational materials. I hope this helps clarify what is admittedly a confusing situation. 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/
