On Thu, 14 Dec 2017 15:53:13 +0100 Mark Davis ☕️ via Unicode <unicode@unicode.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 3:22 PM, Michael Everson > <ever...@evertype.com> wrote: > > NO. Clusters cannot be broken up just anywhere. > Does that mean that ancient inscriptions would leave gaps at the end > of lines in order to not break a cluster, or that modern users would > expect software to leave gaps at the end of lines in order to not > break a cluster? And what constitutes a cluster? Is that semantically > determined (eg like Thai), or is it based on algorithmic features of > the hieroglyphs? An absence of gaps in ancient inscriptions would not be revealing. One justification trick available to the engravers was variable spelling - spacing phonetic complements were optional. Original letters would offer the best evidence in this respect. We're going to have some algorithmic clusters - it will make no sense to break quadrats between lines. Also, it would be perverse to line-break a graphic transposition. Phonetic elements normally occur in phonetic order, but bird plus tall thin character is usually replaced by tall thin character plus bird. Thus splitting 𓎗𓅱𓏜 /wḏ/ 'order' <wD-w-Y1A> i.e. <U+13397 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH V024, U+13171 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH G043, U+133DC EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH Y001A> into wD on one line and w-Y1A on the next would be perverse. Unfortunately, I don't know whether it happens or not. Preventing this particular example ought to require a semantic analysis, but I couldn't find an example of word final V024 in the free, 2006 edition of Paul Dickson's "Dictionary of Middle Egyptian in Gardiner Classification Order", so perhaps a sequence wD-w will always be word-internal. Richard.
