At 17:41 -0800 2003-12-22, Kenneth Whistler wrote:I have not questioned Manichaean. But I do wonder if someone has confused it with Mandaic. It is the latter which is a form of Aramaic, in both language and script, and is in modern use by a small community, which justifies its appearance on the BMP. The Manichaean script is also derived from the early Semitic but the language it is used for is not Semitic.
If there is, however, some consensus that Samaritan and Manichaen *do* deserve separate encoding consideration, how about pursuing the furthering of encoding proposals for those as distinct scripts and then come back around later to review the ancient forms once again after some more of the pieces have fallen into place?
Oh, Manichaean is certainly going to be encoded. The German scholars I met with in Prague last year have been extremely helpful in
Regarding Samaritan, there is a group of modern users certainly. This page http://www.orindalodge.org/kadoshsamaritan.php has a number of interesting links on it. Masonic scholars apparently differentiate between Hebrew and Samaritan.
Again, I have not questioned Samaritan. But this Masonic use seems to be as a cipher; note that they write: "That means that you can represent any *unpointed and unaccented* Hebrew in Samaritan type just by changing the font." This should not be confused with the use of Samaritan script by the continuing Samaritan community (of 654 people as of January 1st 2003, see http://thesamaritanupdate.com/). I note the following which is written by the Samaritan community itself, at http://www.the-samaritans.com/script.htm:
The Samaritan script is used today by the Samaritans when writing the Torah (Pentateuch), prayer books, and for other religious purposes. Today the Samaritans in their everyday use write in Arabic or modern Hebrew or as this website displays some English.* *
-- Peter Kirk [EMAIL PROTECTED] (personal) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (work) http://www.qaya.org/
