> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Dean Snyder
> >I would say that pointing > >one text with the vowels of another, without regard for discrepencies in > >character-count, constitutes an abuse of the Hebrew orthography, and > >shouldn't be considered "normal" usage that must be supported. > > Calling ketiv/qere spellings orthographic abuse, abnormal, and not worthy > of support in Unicode is based on reasoning backwards from the faulty > Unicode model for encoded Hebrew, rather than forwards from the Hebrew > script to an encoding model. I'd agree, except that I wouldn't give a blanket characterization of the Unicode encoding for Hebrew as being faulty. There is a natural tendency for people familiar with a particular language and its associated script to view encoding requirements as tied to that language. I really think then when we devise encodings (and, to some extent, rendering implementations -- I mention that since that's something I work on) we need to abstract the script away from a particular language. The reason for this is that the way the script is used to write a particular language at a particular point in time is a snapshot of one particular usage. Writing changes with time, and there is a tendency for scripts to be adopted for use by other languages. I also think we need to view encoding as a representation of text elements, whatever the linguistic interpretation (or non-interpretation) of those text elements. Thus, I agree with Dean: > From an encoding point of view, ketiv/qere is NOTHING MORE than arbitrary > sequences of Hebrew vowels and consonants, and just as Unicode supports > ANY sequence of Latin vowels and consonants it should have, from the very > beginning, supported ANY sequence of Hebrew vowels and consonants. except that where he says "it should have" I'd say that I've always assumed that it does. > The > problem lies not in the script, the problem lies in the inadequate > encoding model adopted for it - and it needs to be fixed. ALL of the > Hebrew script must be supported; anything less is simply unacceptable. At this point, I would ask that people move from voicing critiques and stating inadequacy to making concrete proposals that identify precisely what is inadequate and precisely how that can be remedied. Peter Constable
