> Agreed. But if you want to write English with the Theban script, as > there are no Theban characters? Or what if you want to write English > with the RTL version of the Theban script which I found mentioned at > http://catb.org/~esr/unicode/theban/? That can't be done by glyph level > substitution.
RTL use of Theban is a conscious decision and comparable to RTL use of Latin (a practice which occurs in user-communities which overlap strongly with those for Theban). Explicit overrides, whether through Unicode explicit overrides or a higher-level protocol such as text-direction mark-up is not only an adequate way of producing such Theban text, but semanticly appropriate since it encodes the *decision* to use RTL. With Theban transcription of Hebrew what should be done would depend on whether the author was using Theban as a cipher of Hebrew, or was transliterating into Latin and then using Theban as a cipher of this. In either case, and with either directionality, Unicode provides character semantics for Latin, Hebrew and directional overrides that can adequately encode the text. Futhark is a LTR script, though there are examples of RTL Futhark, both from "traditional" use (e.g. in the Franks Casket) and in occult use (it's an occult convention to mirror the second rune of a double-constonant, I use this though I have no idea if this practice is traditional or a recent invention, and I neither care nor expect Unicode to care either way).
