Philippe, This is an interesting inventory and prompts a couple of questions. First, do you have a corresponding list of languages (and countries) for these various characters? That would be useful. Second, is this part of a project?
On the characters themselves quick comments re 4 that you mention: * Re alpha, in what languages do you see these uses? In Latin transcription of Tamasheq, I believe the alpha may have been suggested as an alternative to the a with turned breve/caron - IOW, the usage of the alpha and one of these diacritical characters would be equivalent (not really an answer to the lack of a capital alpha when you need it) * Again the r-bar issue - is this to be a precomposed pair of characters now? * Re u-bar, this is apparently in the DRC by up to three languages (Lengu, Mangbetu, Budu) and in Cameroon reportedly by 7 (West. Ejagham, Fe'efe'e, Kozime, Limbum, Mekaa, Yamba, and Yemba). Having LC but not capital forms leaves options of composing the capital (not ideal) or adding another precomposed. * Re hooked w this was discussed on a12n-collaboration as being used in one language of Burkina Faso (Puguli). See, among others, http://lists.kabissa.org/lists/archives/public/a12n-collaboration/msg00474.html (the latter also has a mention of the u-bar). Don Osborn Bisharat.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Philippe Verdy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Michael Everson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2003 6:12 AM Subject: RE: Missing African Latin letters > Michael Everson wrote: > > Philippe Verdy wrote: > > > Some letters used in Latin transcription of Pan-Sahelian scripts > > > are still missing in Unicode: > > > Is there a proposal to include them, as they are needed for case > > > folding and capital transcription? > > > I can identify immediately these two ones that would be needed on > > > Pan-Sahelian keyboards: > > > > > >U+027E LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH FISHHOOK > > >U+???? LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R WITH FISHHOOK > > > > > >U+0266 LATIN SMALL LETTER H WITH HOOK > > >U+???? LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H WITH HOOK > > > > Looking at the International Niamey keyboard layout given at > > > http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=IntlNiameyK > ybd > > it can be observed that, of the set of letters used, four of them do > > not have capital forms: > > > > U+0266 LATIN SMALL LETTER H WITH HOOK > > U+027E LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH FISHHOOK > > I gave these two ones in my message. > > > U+0251 LATIN SMALL LETTER ALPHA > > (Note that the Big Alpha has a glyph often made distinct from an uppercase > A, using a rounded top instead of the angular shape, but some writers seem > to add a turned breve (or a breve or another diacritic) above a standard A, > to make it appear as Alpha and not A. Sometimes the "alpha" is marked with a > AE or ae letter (I think it comes from limited character sets, where AE was > present but there was no possible distinction for the Latin letter Alpha). I > don't know the language in which it is written, so I can't say if they are a > fallback convention for printing or a separate orthographic letter. May be > an Africanist will reply to this... > > > U+0273 LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH RETROFLEX HOOK > > I did not list them, but there are other missing capital letters: > (outside of glottal stops which do not seem to have case > variation, although it may be possible that this is rendred > in some African texts for titles): > > 01AA;LATIN LETTER REVERSED ESH LOOP;Ll;0;L;;;;;N;;<??>;;<??>; > <??>;LATIN CAPITAL REVERSED ESH LOOP;Lu;0;L;;;;;N;;;01AA;; > > 01BA;LATIN SMALL LETTER ESH WITH TAIL;Ll;0;L;;;;;N;;<??>;;<??>; > <??>;LATIN CAPITAL LETTER ESH WITH TAIL;Lu;0;L;;;;;N;;;01BA;; > > 0271;LATIN SMALL LETTER M WITH HOOK;Ll;0;L;;;;;N;LATIN SMALL LETTER M > HOOK;<??>;;<??>; > <??>;LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M WITH HOOK;Lu;0;L;;;;;N;;;0271;; > > 0289;LATIN SMALL LETTER U BAR;Ll;0;L;;;;;N;;<??>;;<??>; > <??>;LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U BAR;Lu;O;L;;;;;N;;;0289;; > > 028C;LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED V;Ll;0;L;;;;;N;;<??>;;<??>; > <??>;LATIN CAPITAL LETTER TURNED V;Lu;0;L;;;;;N;;;028C;; > > On the opposite, there seems also to exist x-height bilabial click (i.e. a > lowercase version, the encoded one being probably uppercase/noncased)... > > 0298;LATIN LETTER BILABIAL CLICK;<???Lu???>;0;L;;;;;N;LATIN LETTER > BULLSEYE;;<??>;; > <??>;LATIN SMALL LETTER BILABIAL CLICK;Ll;0;L;;;;;N;;0298;;0298; > > And of course there are the three missing letters: > > U+???? LATIN SMALL LETTER R BAR > U+???? LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R BAR > > U+???? LATIN SMALL LETTER W WITH HOOK > U+???? LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W WITH HOOK > > U+???? LATIN SMALL LETTER KHI (or X WITH HOOK?) > U+???? LATIN CAPITAL LETTER KHI (or X WITH HOOK?) > > And did not check all the letter variants composed with lower dots rather > than hooks and bars, but this second set seems complete. > > > __________________________________________________________________ > << ella for Spam Control >> has removed Spam messages and set aside > Newsletters for me > You can use it too - and it's FREE! http://www.ellaforspam.com >
