LATIN LETTER TONE SIX isn't a Latin clone of the Cyrillic soft sign per se, but is simply a character that is based on the Cyrillic letter that looks most like the digit "6". It was chosen to represent Zhuang Tone 6 purely on the shape of the glyph (likewise the letters for Zhuang Tones 1-5 were chosen simply for their resemblence to the digits "1" through "5"), and has no relation to the original phonetic usage of the Cyrillic letter.
It doesn't have to have. My point would be that soft sign was borrowed into Latin for Tatar as well as for Zhuang, and that though we have encoded it for Zhuang, it should be used for old Tatar as well.
To modify the reference glyph be modified to be more soft-sign like would simply make the reference glyph less Zhuang Tone Six-like.
Only if Zhuang never uses the ordinary soft sign glyph. I am sure I have seen the ordinary soft sign glyph used for Zhuang (but cannot remember where, so I have to discover it again). I recognize that the burden of proof is on me for this.
--
Michael Everson * * Everson Typography * * http://www.evertype.com
