...
Since the fixed position of the holam variant under discussion is not the
same as that of holam, a variation selector would definitely not be
appropriate. Holam has canonical combining class 19, and as such
any variant identified by a variation selector would be of that class and
should therefore place its mark in the same fixed position as holam.
There certainly are combining class issues with the use of a variation selector here. But at this point I am more interested in the principle.
The shin dot and sin dot pair applied to the letter shin is probably the
closest analogy. Same base character, with identical looking marks
distinguished by position only and having different fixed position
canonical combining classes. That suggests that if the holam variant
that is under discussion is accepted for Unicode, then it should be
encoded as a separate character with a fixed position combining
class other than 19. If one of the other fixed position classes used by
Hebrew (Hebrew uses the range 10-26) is not identical to the position
of this variant, then a new class will need to be added, perhaps class
37 as that is the closest unused fixed position canonical combining
class to the existing Hebrew classes.
Thanks for making the point that with this kind of solution an appropriate combining class needs to be chosen. If you want to take further part in the discussion of encoding holam male, please join the Unicode Hebrew list.
-- Peter Kirk [EMAIL PROTECTED] (personal) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (work) http://www.qaya.org/
