[EMAIL PROTECTED] scripsit: > In this context, and if it's true that a spell checker could, in theory, be > programmed to handle parallel encoding conventions, then why shouldn't Irish > language "traditionalists" encode the i with a LATIN SMALL LETTER DOTLESS I > such as <0131>?
It could be done, yes, but there's no *point* to it. Similarly, the Uncial-style "g" will soon be encoded in Unicode for the sake of plain-text documents that distinguish between the two kinds of "g" (or the three kinds, as we already have the IPA-style "g" with the single hook). That doesn't mean that it makes sense to use this new character in writing Irish using an Uncial font. The shape of a or g, or the presence or absence of a dot over i, is a font distinction that Unicode doesn't need to represent. When the distinction becomes a semantic one, as in IPA or Old English/Middle English dictionaries or Turkic text respectively, then it makes sense to introduce and use additional characters. Otherwise not. Irish has in fact only one a, g, and i, and should use the regular Basic Latin versions of these. You might say, then why not introduce a "seimhiu" character whose glyphic representation is either h-following or dot-above? Primarily for Unicode structural reasons: Unicode needs to say a character is either combining or not. -- John Cowan www.reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] 'Tis the Linux rebellion / Let coders take their place, The Linux-nationale / Shall Microsoft outpace, We can write better programs / Our CPUs won't stall, So raise the penguin banner of / The Linux-nationale.
