On Fri, 22 Mar 2013 12:08:14 +0100 Philippe Verdy <[email protected]> wrote:
> adding new variants of existing characters like what was done > specifically for maths is not a stabl long term solution; solutions > similar to variant selectors however are much more meaningful, and > will allow for example to make the distinction between a MIDDLE DOT > punctuation and an ANO TELEIA, and will also allow them to be rendered > differently (even if there's no requirement to do so). What is appealing about the idea of variation selectors in this case is that one can usually identify the meaning of middle dot from the context, and therefore deduce the glyph required for high quality rendering, but in some rare cases one can't. For example, the Catalan and British decimal point can be interpreted as word-internal separators (almost a visible CGJ!) and may well truly be the same character, but the British decimal point very occasionally terminates the number. In that instance, it would not be distinguishable from ano telia without a larger context. Would it truly be amazing to find a transliteration of Greek into the Latin script that preserved Greek pronuciation? U+0964 DEVANAGARI DANDA and U+0965 DEVANAGARI DOUBLE DANDA are used with classical Indian languages written in the Latin script. It would make sense to have variation selectors as fallback mechanisms for these rare cases. It also avoids the upheaval of disunification. As to the idea of marking semantics, there is the problem that people will normally not bother. Had anyone tried to assess the usage of CGJ outside the context of indexes? Is there evidence of conscious distinction of U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE and U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK - I imagine the chief source of the latter is 'intelligent quotes' features in word processors. While computerised grammar checkers may attempt to enforce such rules, many people just turn them off because the checkers are often wrong. Richard.
