So my question is, once again: would a font that would display pointed Latin glyphs from Tifinagh script code points really break the Unicode model?
Yes, Philippe. It is the same thing as mapping Cyrillic to ASCII letters. It is a hack. It is to be avoided. It is the Wrong Thing To Do.
If not, then we have a convenient way to define Tifinagh keyboards / input methods based on this _apparent_ transliteration.
This has nothing to do with encoding. You are harkening back to the hideous world of 8-bit font hacks of twenty years ago.
This still requires a specific mapping to codepoints in the keyboard driver when set to input for Tifinagh, allows editing with a set of glyphs that a user can read, and then render it transparently with a real Tifinagh font.
You are confusing character encoding, font, and input method.
This would be a great tool for example on web site: the same text or web page could be displayed with the Latin glyphs or with the historic Tifinagh glyphs, by only selecting a distinct font.
Of course. We don't need the Georgian or Armenian alphabets any more either. Just make everything a glyph representation of Latin.
So a page in Berber would be composed once, and readable from both communities that can read either the Latin script or the Tifinagh script, and there would be now no need to use one of the many kludge conventions that exist for that language when presenting contents in Berber (notably for those pages that are coded with a mix of Latin letters, Greek letters, or symbols like dollar and asterisk...
I am appalled. I thought you understood something about Unicode, Philippe. -- Michael Everson * * Everson Typography * * http://www.evertype.com
