Even if some minutiae of glyph selection are left to a font, the problem
is often that there's no specification as to what certain languages
need, so that fonts cannot be expected to provide the correct
implementation.
When Unicode was first created, the fact that one and the same quotation
mark character could be both opening and closing was not widely realized
in the character encoding community. This was rectified over time, and
now there is detailed information (even though it may not be exhaustive)
on common practices in chapter 6 of the standard.
So far, this information is limited to character usage (which character
code when). Augmenting that with information on required design
differences, that is elements of glyph variations that are encompassed
by certain of the characters, and how they track with language, would
round out the picture.
I take this kind of information as an essential adjunct to the identity
of a character, as in effect, it documents which typical glyph variants
have been explicitly unified. For many characters, in particular the
letters, glyph variations rarely need to be documented, because each
variant relates to the underlying character in an "obvious" manner. The
same is usually not the case for punctuation.
So, one of the most useful things that could come of the current
discussion, would be a thorough documentation of the glyph variations
needed to support both English and German for the same quotation mark
characters.
The document that was passed around here, is difficult to follow because
it mixes issues of glyph design with character selection and font
selection. The discussion would have to be recast in terms of what
design features successful language-dependent glyphs would need to
exhibit for a combination of existing characters with certain languages.
A./
