2011/8/13 mmarx <[email protected]>: >>> I attach a Garshuni document from >>> Beit al-Qammar showing Arab vowel >>> marks -- just as the Syriac communmties >>> are using Syriac vowel marks in Arabic >>> script text -- and (in the second line >>> on the left) wasla above olaph. >>> >>> So whatever the status of wasla mark >>> will be fore Arabic, for Syriac/Garshuni >>> it is need as a normal mark in normal text. > >> Unicode cannot encode a combining Wasla (because of various stability >> policies), so if Syriac needs a Wasla to be shown only over a letter >> or two, one needs to propose precomposed characters for them. Just >> like the existing Arabic Alef-Wasla.
Why not? If the character is new, it can perfectly be encoded with whatever character property is needed, including with a non-zero combining class, if it fits. The stability policy aboud combining sequences is only for sequences of characters that are already encoded and for which decomposition mappings (and the related standard normalizations), as well as basic case mappings in the UCD cannot be modified. The stability policy does not concern currently unassigned code points (except possibly a few ones: the directionality of all code points within some designated RTL blocks, should they be currently assigned to characters or not; and the reservation of all assigned and unassigned code points in the few blocks allocated only for combining characters).
