Patrick Durusau wrote at 4:34 PM on Friday, May 21, 2004: >Dean, > >Dean Snyder wrote: >> Mark E. Shoulson wrote at 2:35 PM on Friday, May 21, 2004: >>>Can we live cosmetic issues like the name out of it? OK, so "Hebrew" is >>>really "Jewish Aramaic," and it's ironic that we're working on encoding >>>a Samaritan block distinct from the Hebrew block. Lots of things are >>>badly named, and bad names sometimes stick. But naming issues like this >>>(what do we name this block? That name is a bad choice...) are >>>irrelevant to the discussion. They just make the discussions longer, >>>but don't affect the validity of anything. If it makes you feel better, >>>pretend that the blocks are named things like U+05D0, and so are the >>>letters. >> >> You're missing my point. I don't really care that it's called Hebrew; but >> I suspect that OTHERS do and that is one motivation (maybe even a >> subconscious one) behind a separate Phoenician proposal. >>
>Sigh, how tiresome. Am I now going to be treated to an entire thread on >the motivations, subconscious or otherwise, for Unicode proposals or >defense of existing blocks? > >There are NO, repeat NO proposals or existing blocks that are not the >sum of our experiences, conscious or otherwise. But miss-directed motivations that are subconscious are more excusable - I was trying to be nice. >It is silly to pretend otherwise and rude to speculate on the >motivations of others, even by implication. My response was just trying to clarify that, for me, the "Hebrew" name in Unicode is not an issue. Mark seems to have misunderstood my statements as MY having an issue with the naming conventions. I look at 22 abstract letter characters encoded in the Hebrew block and think of them as Canaanite, irrespective of the block's name or history in Unicode. >Ken Whistler has on occassion tried to get this discussion back towards >Unicode and and this sort of post is taking a different path. I've tried very hard to stay objective and on topic. If I've failed to do so please show me where and I'll try to do better. I would point out however that it was Ken who made the following statement in a previous email: "And as all matters Middle East, I'm suspecting that we have stumbled into a *religious* matter here than [sic] nobody is ever going to resolve on technical grounds." Though I have disagreements with his analysis, I do believe his remarks were pertinent and it would be wrong to chide him for speaking off topic, for speculating, or for being rude. >I would really like to see posts concerning Unicode issues when I open >my inbox tomorrow. I would be interested in your opinion on the advisability of separately encoding Phoenician. Respectfully, Dean A. Snyder Assistant Research Scholar Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project Computer Science Department Whiting School of Engineering 218C New Engineering Building 3400 North Charles Street Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218 office: 410 516-6850 cell: 717 817-4897 www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi
