Re: Egyptological Transliteration Characters
At 17:49 -0400 2004-10-21, Dean Snyder wrote: >> 02BF MODIFIER LETTER LEFT HALF RING Which is what I use (dating back from Unicode 3.0, where it was specifically annotated). (I know authors who use superscript c as well.) I personally agree with your choice - if I had to pick one Unicode character to designate as transliterated ayin I would choose left half ring. And in that case, I would recommend encoding: * MODIFIER CAPITAL LETTER LEFT HALF RING Wrong Thing To Do. The Right Thing To Do is to investigate the history of these characters, compare them to what is in use and what is encoded, and to make recommendations accordingly. I am giving this as much attention as I can given the constraints which are upon me. -- Michael Everson * * Everson Typography * * http://www.evertype.com
Re: Egyptological Transliteration Characters
Philipp Reichmuth wrote at 9:44 PM on Thursday, October 21, 2004: >I'm not saying that half ring is the *only* way Ayin is transcribed. >... >However, I would say that left half ring is preferred, at least in works >dealing with more than just Hebrew (supposing the character was >available at all to the respective author) I would not say that there is a "preferred" practice for transliterated ayin (implying some sort of international consensus); instead I would just say there are many competing practices - left half ring, left- single-quotation-mark, inverted-left-single-quotation-mark, slanted-left- single-quotation-mark, slanted-inverted-enlarged-left-single-quotation- mark (as in Gardiner's Egyptian Grammar), super-scripted-c, IPA pharyngeal voiced fricative, plus various other idiosyncratic permutations on the basic idea. >> 02BF MODIFIER LETTER LEFT HALF RING > >Which is what I use (dating back from Unicode 3.0, where it was >specifically annotated). (I know authors who use superscript c as well.) I personally agree with your choice - if I had to pick one Unicode character to designate as transliterated ayin I would choose left half ring. And in that case, I would recommend encoding: * MODIFIER CAPITAL LETTER LEFT HALF RING And, while we're at it, do the analogous thing for transliterated aleph and encode: * MODIFIER CAPITAL LETTER RIGHT HALF RING (Although I realize that this is not the desired Egyptian transliterated aleph and would therefore have limited usage in Semitic contexts.) Respectfully, Dean A. Snyder Assistant Research Scholar Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project Computer Science Department Whiting School of Engineering 218C New Engineering Building 3400 North Charles Street Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218 office: 410 516-6850 cell: 717 817-4897 www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi
Re: Egyptological Transliteration Characters
Dean Snyder schrieb: For Semitics at least, this is *not* a "left quotation mark"; people normally use a left half ring wherever the character is available. The following is a small and quickly generated sample list of publications in which transliterated Semitic ayins are represented by left single quotation marks (and alephs are represented by right single quotation marks): For Semitics, it could have something to do with what side of the Atlantic you're on... Library of Congress transliteration [1] uses apostrophes (according with their general tendency to use as little diacritics as possible), the DMG advocates half rings at least for Arabic, see [2]. French practice in most works I've got here is to use half ring; I've got one French work [3] where superscript lowercase epsilon is used. Philipp [1] http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/arabic.pdf; http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/hebrew.pdf [2] Brockelmann, Carl et al. (eds.) 1935, Die Transliteration der arabischen Schrift in ihrer Anwendung auf die Hauptliteratursprachen der islamischen Welt. Denkschrift dem 19. internationalen Orientalistenkongreß in Rom. Leipzig: Brockhaus. [3] Cantineau, Jean 1960, Cours de phonetique arabie, Paris: Klincksieck
Re: Egyptological Transliteration Characters
Dean Snyder schrieb: For Semitics at least, this is *not* a "left quotation mark"; people normally use a left half ring wherever the character is available. The following is a small and quickly generated sample list of publications in which transliterated Semitic ayins are represented by left single quotation marks (and alephs are represented by right single quotation marks): [...] Today, I went to make some scans from the following works: Reckendorf, H., Über Paronomasie in den semitischen Sprachen, Gießen: Töpelmann 1909 Gibb, H.A.R. et al. (eds.), The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Leiden: Brill 1960-- Hetzron, Robert (ed.), The Semitic Languages, London: Routledge 1997 and from the journal "Die Welt des Islam", all of which use left half ring. Most works typeset by Brill will, too, including several encyclopedias and a large number of volumes from the Handbuch der Orientalistik. (Brill have very distinct half ring characters in their Baskerville fonts.) I don't really have the time to do a comprehensive survey on what is more frequent in our library. I'm not saying that half ring is the *only* way Ayin is transcribed. Lipinski, Edward, Semitic Languages: Outline of a comparative grammar, Leuven: Peeters 1997 has a left single quotation mark, for example, and uses a right one for hamza/glottal stop. Incidentally, the book is typeset in Times. However, I would say that left half ring is preferred, at least in works dealing with more than just Hebrew (supposing the character was available at all to the respective author) On the other hand, I "grew up" in the DMG transliteration schemes, so I'm probably a bit pre-inclined towards the half ring form. My statement that quotation mark is just a substitute for half ring was probably too strong. A decision to encode ayin characters needs to be accurately informed by such practices. Definitely. On the other hand, I would say that choice between left quotation mark and left half ring is largely due to different transliteration practices. The fact that Hebraists more frequently use quotation marks does not make any implication at all for Egyptology, especially because of the properties of ayin in Hebrew. Unicode should *not* advocate particular transliteration practices. 02BF MODIFIER LETTER LEFT HALF RING Which is what I use (dating back from Unicode 3.0, where it was specifically annotated). (I know authors who use superscript c as well.) Philipp
Re: Public Review Issues Update
Theo, Further following up from what Mark Davis responded... > Mark Davis wrote: > > All comments are reviewed at the next UTC meeting. Due to the volume, we > > don't reply to each and every one what the disposition was. If actions were > > taken, they are recorded in the minutes of the meetings. > > But what if an action was not taken. Do I have to keep reporting a particular > problem until it's gone? Instead of expecting a bureaucratic response, as if from a governmental organization staffed up with clerks whose job it is to track this kind of stuff, a *practical* approach would be to: A. Check the public minutes when they become available. B. Check the disposition of a Public Review Issue on the website, when it becomes available. C. If neither of those seems to have explicitly addressed some item that you provided feedback on, then contact (offlist) someone who did attend the meeting in question, and see if they have information about the item in question. If none of A, B, or C satisfies you, *then* submit another problem report, including a more explicit request in it for an explicit response regarding its disposition. If *that* doesn't suffice, then work with a UTC participant to submit a UTC position paper on the problem, asking for an agenda item and an explicit position to be taken on the record. The UTC may decline to do so, depending on the nature of the perceived problem, but you will find out why and get the explicit feedback you are seeking. It is all about knowing how to work the voluntary standards process. The Unicode Consortium Public Review Input process is a process whereby the consortium solicits and gathers input from interested experts in the public regarding issues for which it seems advisable to the committee to do so -- where an issue may not be open and shut, where there is reason to expect outsider stakeholders want to provide input, and so forth. The Public Review Input process is *not* an attempt to clone the JTC1 ballot voting process, with its requirement to provide a written Disposition of Comments regarding every comment made on a ballot by a National Body voting on an ISO standard. > Also, there is no way of telling which problems > already have been reported a dozen times before. This has generally not been an issue. There are occasional repeat reports of the same problem, but it isn't worth trying to engineer a solution to a non-problem. The main check against people submitting repeat reports of errors is asking them to explicitly check the Updates and Errata page before submitting reports. The UTC does try to keep that page current with reports of significant errors that have been reported and corrected already. > Assuming the comments > reported are archived, why can't this archive be made accessible to the > unicode list? Because that would likely create more noise than do any good. --Ken
Re: Egyptological Transliteration Characters
Philipp Reichmuth wrote at 10:24 PM on Wednesday, October 20, 2004: >For Semitics at least, this is *not* a "left quotation mark"; people >normally use a left half ring wherever the character is available. >(Take a look at Brill publications, such as the Encyclopaedia of Islam; >Brill's Baskerville variant has a pretty distinct ayin.) The quotation >mark is a substitute only. I guess the only difference in principle >with the Egyptological version is that the Egyptological ayin more or >less has an uppercase form. The following is a small and quickly generated sample list of publications in which transliterated Semitic ayins are represented by left single quotation marks (and alephs are represented by right single quotation marks): * Thomas O. Lambdin 1971 Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (Harvard University) * Giovanni Garbini 1979 Storia e problemi dell'epigrafia semitica (Oriental Institute of Naples) * Richard E. Whitaker 1972 A Concordance of the Ugaritic Literature (Harvard University) * Zellig S. Harris 1936 A Grammar of the Phoenician Language (American Oriental Society) * Hermann L. Strack 1978 Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (Atheneum) * De Lacy O'Leary 1963 Colloquial Arabic (Routledge & Kegan Paul) * Paul Joüon 1996 A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Pontifical Biblical Institute) * James S. Pritchard, ed. 1969 Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Princeton University) * Choon Leong Seow 1987 A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew (Abingdon) * Geoffrey E. Bromiley, ed. 1979 The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Eerdmans) * Johannes Friedrich & Wolfgang Röllig 1970 Phönizisch-Punische Grammatik (Pontifical Biblical Institute) In none of these publications can one differentiate between transliterated ayins and left single quotation marks. Of course, there are many publications where transliterated ayin does differ slightly from the left single quotation mark. And there are a goodly number in which an even greater distinction is made. A decision to encode ayin characters needs to be accurately informed by such practices. To my previous list of ayin transliteration candidates already in Unicode, one could also add: 02BF MODIFIER LETTER LEFT HALF RING Respectfully, Dean A. Snyder Assistant Research Scholar Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project Computer Science Department Whiting School of Engineering 218C New Engineering Building 3400 North Charles Street Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218 office: 410 516-6850 cell: 717 817-4897 www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi
Re: Egyptological Transliteration Characters
On 21/10/2004 01:24, Philipp Reichmuth wrote: Dean Snyder schrieb: I think you will actually find little trace of the quotation mark for Egyptian transliteration in published work although I look forward to hearing of examples Dean! The modern Egyptian Ayin convention is pretty much established by end 19th century. Modern computer software all uses this form. As just one example, you can look at the transliteration section of Gardner's grammar and see that he uses the same character for both Egyptian ayin and Arabic ayin - an indication that he considered this symbol merely a glyphic variant of the left quotation mark used for ayin in Semitic languages. For Semitics at least, this is *not* a "left quotation mark"; people normally use a left half ring wherever the character is available. (Take a look at Brill publications, such as the Encyclopaedia of Islam; Brill's Baskerville variant has a pretty distinct ayin.) The quotation mark is a substitute only. ... Unicode of course already has the left half ring character, which is commonly used for Semitic transliteration. Any good reason why this character can't be used also for Egyptology? ... I guess the only difference in principle with the Egyptological version is that the Egyptological ayin more or less has an uppercase form. "More or less"? Is there really a distinct upper case form? Is this in current use? -- Peter Kirk [EMAIL PROTECTED] (personal) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (work) http://www.qaya.org/
Re: Public Review Issues Update
People get different things out of the printed book; I personally don't need the code charts; I always look at online versions. But many people find printed charts very useful; de gustibus non disputandum est. As to the comments; this may seem recursive, but if you file an online report requesting feedback, it will be taken up at the UTC. âMark - Original Message - From: "Theo Veenker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Mark Davis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "unicode" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 01:41 Subject: Re: Public Review Issues Update > Mark Davis wrote: > > All comments are reviewed at the next UTC meeting. Due to the volume, we > > don't reply to each and every one what the disposition was. If actions were > > taken, they are recorded in the minutes of the meetings. > > But what if an action was not taken. Do I have to keep reporting a particular > problem until it's gone? Also, there is no way of telling which problems > already have been reported a dozen times before. Assuming the comments > reported are archived, why can't this archive be made accessible to the > unicode list? > > Theo > > > P.S. > > I know the Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization and you are all > very very busy, and I look up to the people behind it. But I often find > it hard to see the part where the Unicode Consortium is actually promoting > use of the Unicode Standard. Sometimes it almost seems to discourage > developers to use the Standard. Take the Book for instance, one is not > allowed to print the online version, so I bought the book to find out > that 2 of its 3 kilograms is just tables of glyphs which could have been > on a CD. So you pay $75 to get value for $25. > > >
Re: Public Review Issues Update
Mark Davis wrote: All comments are reviewed at the next UTC meeting. Due to the volume, we don't reply to each and every one what the disposition was. If actions were taken, they are recorded in the minutes of the meetings. But what if an action was not taken. Do I have to keep reporting a particular problem until it's gone? Also, there is no way of telling which problems already have been reported a dozen times before. Assuming the comments reported are archived, why can't this archive be made accessible to the unicode list? Theo P.S. I know the Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization and you are all very very busy, and I look up to the people behind it. But I often find it hard to see the part where the Unicode Consortium is actually promoting use of the Unicode Standard. Sometimes it almost seems to discourage developers to use the Standard. Take the Book for instance, one is not allowed to print the online version, so I bought the book to find out that 2 of its 3 kilograms is just tables of glyphs which could have been on a CD. So you pay $75 to get value for $25.
