Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[suzuki toshiya]

Many thanks to Julian and Michael for your investigation!

Julian, when you contact with Leena in next time, please ask
her whether she had ever seen something like a syllabic version
of
http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr50/paystation.png

Regards,
mpsuzuki

Michael Everson wrote:

On 17 May 2012, at 18:35, Julian Bradfield wrote:


It took me a little while, but I finally managed to put this to an
Inuktitut speaker (Leena Evic of the Pirurvik Centre in Iqaluit, Nunavut).


I had a response from a number of school curriculum developers in Nunavut.


Her response was that the rotated sidebars on the newsletter cited
earlier are entirely readable (in fact, I had to explain how there
could possibly be a problem), and that the vertical layout advocated
by Michael is "not common, and in most cases not ideal."


My respondants did not address this issue. They understood what was asked, and 
gave a clear response.


It would thus appear that Michael is alone in finding rotated
syllabics hard to read.
He might have more luck with a language that doesn't use finals or
other raised letters, but off-hand I can't find one.


Remarkable.

The answer I received was that in vertical text, most of the group preferred (d) in the 
"Aamuu"/"Atim" example (with the final bound to its syllable) though some of 
them also found (b) acceptable (with the final below the syllable) as long as the ᒻ character is 
smaller than the others.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[Michael Everson]

On 17 May 2012, at 18:35, Julian Bradfield wrote:

> It took me a little while, but I finally managed to put this to an
> Inuktitut speaker (Leena Evic of the Pirurvik Centre in Iqaluit, Nunavut).

I had a response from a number of school curriculum developers in Nunavut.

> Her response was that the rotated sidebars on the newsletter cited
> earlier are entirely readable (in fact, I had to explain how there
> could possibly be a problem), and that the vertical layout advocated
> by Michael is "not common, and in most cases not ideal."

My respondants did not address this issue. They understood what was asked, and 
gave a clear response.

> It would thus appear that Michael is alone in finding rotated
> syllabics hard to read.
> He might have more luck with a language that doesn't use finals or
> other raised letters, but off-hand I can't find one.

Remarkable.

The answer I received was that in vertical text, most of the group preferred 
(d) in the "Aamuu"/"Atim" example (with the final bound to its syllable) though 
some of them also found (b) acceptable (with the final below the syllable) as 
long as the ᒻ character is smaller than the others.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[Julian Bradfield]

On 2012-05-03, Michael Everson  wrote:
> On 3 May 2012, at 17:35, Asmus Freytag wrote:
>> But it would not give an answer to the underlying question, on whether such 
>> upright rendering would be the default choice - whether in its own script 
>> context, or whether in the context of inserting material (quotes) in other 
>> writing systems that do use vertical layout and have a long tradition of 
>> doing so.
>
> We already know that. Rotated Syllabics text is confusing and illegible. This 
> follows directly from the structure of the script. 
>
>> Likewise, I suspect, that no matter how you arrange it, stacked syllabics 
>> will look odd enough that the natural way to render longer text that for 
>> some reasons have to go vertically, would be rotated.
>
> I "suspect" otherwise. I know that un-rotated vertical Syllabics text 
> maintains the basic shapes of the Syllabics characters, and is therefore more 
> legible than rotated vertical Syllabics text, which automatically changes the 
> readings of many syllabics syllables. 


It took me a little while, but I finally managed to put this to an
Inuktitut speaker (Leena Evic of the Pirurvik Centre in Iqaluit, Nunavut).

Her response was that the rotated sidebars on the newsletter cited
earlier are entirely readable (in fact, I had to explain how there
could possibly be a problem), and that the vertical layout advocated
by Michael is "not common, and in most cases not ideal."

It would thus appear that Michael is alone in finding rotated
syllabics hard to read.
He might have more luck with a language that doesn't use finals or
other raised letters, but off-hand I can't find one.


-- 
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[Jean-François Colson]

Le 01/05/12 20:19, Michael Everson a écrit :

On 1 May 2012, at 17:05, Julian Bradfield wrote:


On 2012-05-01, Michael Everson  wrote:

than it is in English, except in neon). The examples you showed were made by 
people who hadn't thought about what they were doing. Since

Don't you think the native speakers might know what they're doing?

Being a native speaker of a language does not confer an ability to typeset. But 
government documents are often translated from majority languages into minority 
languages and make use of the template handed to them (in this case most likely 
French or English).
It seems 
http://www.gov.nu.ca/save10/English/Documents/Newsletters/Newsletter%203/Newsletter%203%20-%20Inuktitut.pdf 
was published by the government of Nunavut, not the federal government. 
And, in Nunavut, Inuktitut is the majority language.

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[Michael Everson]

On 3 May 2012, at 17:35, Asmus Freytag wrote:

> Well, it's an incomplete query and because of that, you will get an 
> incomplete result.

Oh, give over. 

> It may give an answer on what the preference would be in handling small marks 
> - under the assumption that characters were to be written upright.

Yes, that's the question being asked. 

> But it would not give an answer to the underlying question, on whether such 
> upright rendering would be the default choice - whether in its own script 
> context, or whether in the context of inserting material (quotes) in other 
> writing systems that do use vertical layout and have a long tradition of 
> doing so.

We already know that. Rotated Syllabics text is confusing and illegible. This 
follows directly from the structure of the script. 

> Likewise, I suspect, that no matter how you arrange it, stacked syllabics 
> will look odd enough that the natural way to render longer text that for some 
> reasons have to go vertically, would be rotated.

I "suspect" otherwise. I know that un-rotated vertical Syllabics text maintains 
the basic shapes of the Syllabics characters, and is therefore more legible 
than rotated vertical Syllabics text, which automatically changes the readings 
of many syllabics syllables. 

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[Asmus Freytag]

On 5/3/2012 5:50 AM, suzuki toshiya wrote:

Thanks!

Michael Everson wrote:

I am forwarding this query to my colleagues in Nunavut.



Well, it's an incomplete query and because of that, you will get an 
incomplete result.


It may give an answer on what the preference would be in handling small 
marks - under the assumption that characters were to be written upright.


But it would not give an answer to the underlying question, on whether 
such upright rendering would be the default choice - whether in its own 
script context, or whether in the context of inserting material (quotes) 
in other writing systems that do use vertical layout and have a long 
tradition of doing so.


Take a simple task like labeling the vertical axis in a plot.

Standard tools give you a choice there (for Latin) between stacked text 
and rotated text.


SImple axis labels are done using stacked text relatively often, but the 
minute you have something complicated, using perhaps superscript 2 for 
some unit of area the stacked rendition runs into the same problem that 
we've been discussing here (the 2 would end up on a line of its own) and 
people then opt for rotated text.


Likewise, I suspect, that no matter how you arrange it, stacked 
syllabics will look odd enough that the natural way to render longer 
text that for some reasons have to go vertically, would be rotated.


But, unless you also ask that question, you'll get an incomplete answer.

A./

PS: and don't forget that even for Latin, the conventions are different 
by location. East Asian usage will allow something like "square meters" 
or °C to occupy a single cell in vertically laid out text whereas tools 
written for Western users (e.g. Excel) generally do not support such 
"mixed flow" usage (where inside some stacked "cell" a few characters 
flow horizontally).

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[suzuki toshiya]

Thanks!

Michael Everson wrote:
> I am forwarding this query to my colleagues in Nunavut.
> 
> Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
> 
> 

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[Michael Everson]

I am forwarding this query to my colleagues in Nunavut.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[suzuki toshiya]

Thanks to everybody commented about the effect of the rotation
for Canadian syllabics. Yet I've not understood fully about
how small superscriptic characters are drawn (or expected to be
drawn) in vertical writing mode.

I attached a picture. In my understanding, when "aamuu" is written
in vertical writing mode, the positions of the black dots of "aa"
and "muu" would not be changed. If this is already misunderstanding,
please let me know (and discard following question).

In next, when "atim" is written in vertical writing mode, how "m"
would be positioned? What I was guessing in my first post was (d).
Some posts say that Canadian aboriginal syllabics in the vertical
writing mode may induce unused spaces in the string (and the result
will look strange or difficult to read), so the expected position
would be one of the (a), (b), (c)? And, after the "m", some space
should be inserted?

Regards,
mpsuzuki

Bill Poser wrote:
> In the case of the Carrier syllabics, I have never seen an example of
> vertical text so there is no native usage to go by. However, as others have
> said, rotated text is very difficult to read because of the role of
> orientation. It's true that the small characters provide evidence as to the
> direction of writing, but it is still quite difficult to read rotated text.
> Unrotated text, on the other hand, is easy enough to read but looks strange
> because of the large amount of unused space in cells containing small
> characters.
> 
> On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 2:07 PM, Asmus Freytag  wrote:
> 
>> I don't understand what the ruckus is about.
>>
>> Looking at the samples, simple observation yields two points:
>>
>> a) the little superscript letters give an immediate and powerful "guide to
>> the eye". There simply is no way you can be confused as to the writing
>> direction of a text snippet (as apposed to isolated letters). Anybody who
>> is fluent in this script will read "word shapes" as you would do in Latin,
>> not "letters". There are apparently so many superscripts that they
>> completely compensate for the issue of symmetric shapes for the base
>> letters.
>>
>> b) The same superscripted letters would seem to make it exceedingly
>> awkward to write texts in vertical mode with upright glyphs. They give all
>> appearance of forming logical clusters or variable length. Those are better
>> accommodated in vertical flow by rotating the line as a whole (hence
>> rotating the glyphs).
>>
>> c) Even if the superscripts don't form graphical or clusters with adjacent
>> characters, the fact is that they take so much less space. This makes it
>> awkward in vertical "character at a time" mode, because many cells would be
>> near-empty.
>>
>> The example of Latin was given, but I think it's misapplied. In most
>> languages, Latin characters do not form strong clusters, and where they do,
>> that might be limited to certain type styles. Dutch IJ is sometimes written
>> as a "unit" in signage that uses upright glyphs for vertical text. Fraktur
>> "ck" clusters strongly enough to not acquire intercharacter spacing in
>> justification (I've not seen any vertical + upright samples of Fraktur).
>> But these types of letter clusters are the exception. For the Syllabics,
>> clustering seems to rather be the rule.
>>
>> Certainly, if you wanted to cite syllabics in vertically set East Asian
>> text there would be no doubt that you'd want to rotate such text.
>>
>> A./
>>
>>
> 



cas-vert.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[Bill Poser]

In the case of the Carrier syllabics, I have never seen an example of
vertical text so there is no native usage to go by. However, as others have
said, rotated text is very difficult to read because of the role of
orientation. It's true that the small characters provide evidence as to the
direction of writing, but it is still quite difficult to read rotated text.
Unrotated text, on the other hand, is easy enough to read but looks strange
because of the large amount of unused space in cells containing small
characters.

On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 2:07 PM, Asmus Freytag  wrote:

> I don't understand what the ruckus is about.
>
> Looking at the samples, simple observation yields two points:
>
> a) the little superscript letters give an immediate and powerful "guide to
> the eye". There simply is no way you can be confused as to the writing
> direction of a text snippet (as apposed to isolated letters). Anybody who
> is fluent in this script will read "word shapes" as you would do in Latin,
> not "letters". There are apparently so many superscripts that they
> completely compensate for the issue of symmetric shapes for the base
> letters.
>
> b) The same superscripted letters would seem to make it exceedingly
> awkward to write texts in vertical mode with upright glyphs. They give all
> appearance of forming logical clusters or variable length. Those are better
> accommodated in vertical flow by rotating the line as a whole (hence
> rotating the glyphs).
>
> c) Even if the superscripts don't form graphical or clusters with adjacent
> characters, the fact is that they take so much less space. This makes it
> awkward in vertical "character at a time" mode, because many cells would be
> near-empty.
>
> The example of Latin was given, but I think it's misapplied. In most
> languages, Latin characters do not form strong clusters, and where they do,
> that might be limited to certain type styles. Dutch IJ is sometimes written
> as a "unit" in signage that uses upright glyphs for vertical text. Fraktur
> "ck" clusters strongly enough to not acquire intercharacter spacing in
> justification (I've not seen any vertical + upright samples of Fraktur).
> But these types of letter clusters are the exception. For the Syllabics,
> clustering seems to rather be the rule.
>
> Certainly, if you wanted to cite syllabics in vertically set East Asian
> text there would be no doubt that you'd want to rotate such text.
>
> A./
>
>

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[Asmus Freytag]

I don't understand what the ruckus is about.

Looking at the samples, simple observation yields two points:

a) the little superscript letters give an immediate and powerful "guide 
to the eye". There simply is no way you can be confused as to the 
writing direction of a text snippet (as apposed to isolated letters). 
Anybody who is fluent in this script will read "word shapes" as you 
would do in Latin, not "letters". There are apparently so many 
superscripts that they completely compensate for the issue of symmetric 
shapes for the base letters.


b) The same superscripted letters would seem to make it exceedingly 
awkward to write texts in vertical mode with upright glyphs. They give 
all appearance of forming logical clusters or variable length. Those are 
better accommodated in vertical flow by rotating the line as a whole 
(hence rotating the glyphs).


c) Even if the superscripts don't form graphical or clusters with 
adjacent characters, the fact is that they take so much less space. This 
makes it awkward in vertical "character at a time" mode, because many 
cells would be near-empty.


The example of Latin was given, but I think it's misapplied. In most 
languages, Latin characters do not form strong clusters, and where they 
do, that might be limited to certain type styles. Dutch IJ is sometimes 
written as a "unit" in signage that uses upright glyphs for vertical 
text. Fraktur "ck" clusters strongly enough to not acquire 
intercharacter spacing in justification (I've not seen any vertical + 
upright samples of Fraktur). But these types of letter clusters are the 
exception. For the Syllabics, clustering seems to rather be the rule.


Certainly, if you wanted to cite syllabics in vertically set East Asian 
text there would be no doubt that you'd want to rotate such text.


A./

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[Ken Whistler]

On 5/1/2012 11:19 AM, Michael Everson wrote:

It does not matter if sideways text can be read as words, or just as gibberish. 
Good practice and typographic design will not rotate syllabic text because of 
the inherent confusability.



Michael has a generally valid point. Rotating *small* snippets of Syllabics
text would be inherently confusing, because the entire script is built out
of a relatively small repertoire of geometrically shaped base letters, for
which many of the rotations and reflections turn them into distinct letters
with different readings. See the first example that Suzuki-san provided a
link for, which prominently has a KA a NU and a NI syllable, where these
3 fall into a rotational set. This is the Latin pbdq problem, but much more
inherent to the graphical structure of the glyphs.

However, I take issue with Michael's immediate trashing of the typography
of these two examples. The second example, in particular:

http://www.cley.gov.nu.ca/pdf/Documentary%20Art%20Project_Inuk.pdf


is quite clearly part of the typesetting of something which could then be
folded into thirds as part of a hand-held piece of collateral -- a 
little pamphlet.

And the rules for what is well-set on a pamphlet are rather different that
what makes sense on a unrotatable computer screen display, precisely
because the pamphlet is in your hands and can be--in fact is designed to
be--fiddled with and rotated manually. In such cases laying out text boxes
with arbitrary rotations is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

On the other hand, that Project Inuk pdf example then fails as a real 
example

of vertical typesetting in the sense intended by TR 50, I think, because it
isn't *meant* to be read vertically.

Other examples of cases like this might be the printing of spines on 
publications,

which also are often not meant to be read vertically.

--Ken

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[Jeremie Hornus]

On 1 May 2012, at 20:19, Michael Everson wrote:

> And I've worked with Inuktitut software localization and with encoding and 
> fonts for syllabics since the 1990s, so I would like to suggest that I know 
> something about the subject.

Good you suggest !
You are obviously THE expert in here; and no-one should speak louder than you 
do.

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[Michael Everson]

On 1 May 2012, at 17:05, Julian Bradfield wrote:

> On 2012-05-01, Michael Everson  wrote:
>> than it is in English, except in neon). The examples you showed were made by 
>> people who hadn't thought about what they were doing. Since
> 
> Don't you think the native speakers might know what they're doing?

Being a native speaker of a language does not confer an ability to typeset. But 
government documents are often translated from majority languages into minority 
languages and make use of the template handed to them (in this case most likely 
French or English). 

>> Canadian Syllabics characters change their meaning when seen sideways, 
>> setting text in the way those two documents did it simply causes immediate 
>> confusion as to the legibility of the text.  
> 
> Not so. I've never looked at Canadian syllabics before,

And I've worked with Inuktitut software localization and with encoding and 
fonts for syllabics since the 1990s, so I would like to suggest that I know 
something about the subject.

> but it was immediately obvious (thanks to the "superscript" characters) that 
> it was text rotated through 90 degrees, so if I wanted to read it (and knew 
> the script and the language), I would read it accordingly. 

Nevertheless because of the structural features the text is considerably more 
confusing than sideways Latin is for readers of Latin.

> Whether there are character sequences that could be read meaningfully both as 
> vertical text and rotated text is an interesting question - is your Inuktitut 
> up to answering it?

It does not matter if sideways text can be read as words, or just as gibberish. 
Good practice and typographic design will not rotate syllabic text because of 
the inherent confusability. 

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[Julian Bradfield]

On 2012-05-01, Michael Everson  wrote:
> than it is in English, except in neon). The examples you showed were
> made by people who hadn't thought about what they were doing. Since

Don't you think the native speakers might know what they're doing?

> Canadian Syllabics characters change their meaning when seen
> sideways, setting text in the way those two documents did it simply
> causes immediate confusion as to the legibility of the text.  

Not so. I've never looked at Canadian syllabics before, but it was
immediately obvious (thanks to the "superscript" characters) that it
was text rotated through 90 degrees, so if I wanted to read it (and knew
the script and the language), I would read it accordingly.
Whether there are character sequences that could be read meaningfully
both as vertical text and rotated text is an interesting question -
is your Inuktitut up to answering it?




-- 
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[suzuki toshiya]

Andrew West wrote:
> On 1 May 2012 12:27, Michael Everson  wrote:
>> On 1 May 2012, at 11:16, suzuki toshiya wrote:
>>
>>> In current draft of UTR#50, the properties for Canadian aboriginal syllabics
>>> are defined as "U; S; S;". But seeing the PDFs like
> 
>  gives:
> 
> 1400..167F ; S ; S ; S
> 1401..167F ; U ; S ; S
> 
> which seems to be a mistake.

According to

http://www.unicode.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=284&sid=7dcf696e0359b351b81433019084097a
it is a mistake of
1400 ; S ; S ; S
1401..167F ; U ; S ; S

>>>   
>>> http://www.gov.nu.ca/save10/English/Documents/Newsletters/Newsletter%203/Newsletter%203%20-%20Inuktitut.pdf
>>>   http://www.cley.gov.nu.ca/pdf/Documentary%20Art%20Project_Inuk.pdf
>>> it is questionable if the default value "U" is preferred.

> In the two examples linked to
> above the UCAS text appears to be rotated counterclockwise in vertical
> layout, so that it reads bottom-to-top sideways, which is not a mode
> of vertical layout that UTR#50 deals with.

Thank you for clarification.

Regards,
mpsuzuki

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[mpsuzuki]

On Tue, 1 May 2012 13:57:19 +0100
Michael Everson  wrote:
>As Andrew said, the examples you showed were not examples of vertical
>text layout. They were examples of somebody rotating a text box.

Ahh, I see.

>On 1 May 2012, at 13:43, suzuki toshiya wrote:
>
>>>You cannot rotate Canadian Syllabics because when you do the
>>>letter-values change. The two examples you have shown are examples of
>>>extremely bad typographic choices.

>>OK, where I can see good examples?

>I already mentioned crosswords. Otherwise, I don't know.

>Vertical presentation of text isn't "normal" in Canadian
>Syllabics (any more than it is in English, except in neon).

I prefer neon, because I'm questionable if the crossword
puzzle is good evidence to discuss the vertical text layout.
The most crosswords are designed to mix both of horizontal
and vertical texts, so the result is not guaranteed to be
chosen freely.

>Since Canadian Syllabics characters change their meaning when
>seen sideways, setting text in the way those two documents did
>it simply causes immediate confusion as to the legibility of
>the text. 

I think this comment is reasonable (change their "sound"?).
If so, the values in East Asian context (EAVO) should not be
sideway but upright? Current draft of UTR#50 assigns "sideway"
values to East Asian context.
In addition, the glyphs for U+141C - U+142A, etc should be
rendered as same with horizontal text? Or their positions
should be changed, or some ligature should be formed?

Regards,
mpsuzuki

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[suzuki toshiya]

Jeremie Hornus wrote:
> On 1 May 2012, at 12:16, suzuki toshiya wrote:
> 
>> Does anybody have "manually written" Canadian aboriginal syllabics in
>> vertical writing mode?
> 
> On 1 May 2012, at 14:57, Michael Everson wrote:
> 
>> vertical text in Canadian Syllabics should be presented. Please take my 
>> advice on this as an expert, rather than worrying about whether you can find 
>> some example made by somebody on the internet. This isn't the Wikipedia.
> 
> 
> 
> My feeling is that Suzuki Toshiya is just curious to see images of actual 
> _hand-written_ samples of those letters...

Yes. I wanted to see a vertically layout text without
the barrier of software implementations.

Regards,
mpsuzuki

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[Jeremie Hornus]

On 1 May 2012, at 12:16, suzuki toshiya wrote:

> Does anybody have "manually written" Canadian aboriginal syllabics in
> vertical writing mode?

On 1 May 2012, at 14:57, Michael Everson wrote:

> vertical text in Canadian Syllabics should be presented. Please take my 
> advice on this as an expert, rather than worrying about whether you can find 
> some example made by somebody on the internet. This isn't the Wikipedia.



My feeling is that Suzuki Toshiya is just curious to see images of actual 
_hand-written_ samples of those letters...

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[Michael Everson]

On 1 May 2012, at 13:43, suzuki toshiya wrote:

>> You cannot rotate Canadian Syllabics because when you do the letter-values 
>> change. The two examples you have shown are examples of extremely bad 
>> typographic choices. 
> 
> OK, where I can see good examples?

I already mentioned crosswords. Otherwise, I don't know. Vertical presentation 
of text isn't "normal" in Canadian Syllabics (any more than it is in English, 
except in neon). The examples you showed were made by people who hadn't thought 
about what they were doing. Since Canadian Syllabics characters change their 
meaning when seen sideways, setting text in the way those two documents did it 
simply causes immediate confusion as to the legibility of the text. 

As Andrew said, the examples you showed were not examples of vertical text 
layout. They were examples of somebody rotating a text box.

T
H
I
S

I
S

T
H
E

O
N
L
Y

W
A
Y

vertical text in Canadian Syllabics should be presented. Please take my advice 
on this as an expert, rather than worrying about whether you can find some 
example made by somebody on the internet. This isn't the Wikipedia.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/

Re: [unicode] Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[suzuki toshiya]

Michael Everson wrote:
>> I cannot exclude the possibility that this rotated text is forced by the
>> limitation of printing software, but, the tuning of the positions for
>> the small glyphs for glottal stop and final sounds (U+141C - U+142A,
>> U+14D0 - U+14D2, etc etc) should be discussed if "U" is preferred value.
> 
> You are GUESSING. Don't guess, please.
> 
> You cannot rotate Canadian Syllabics because when you do the letter-values 
> change. The two examples you have shown are examples of extremely bad 
> typographic choices. 

OK, where I can see good examples?

Regards,
mpsuzuki

Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[Andrew West]

On 1 May 2012 12:27, Michael Everson  wrote:
> On 1 May 2012, at 11:16, suzuki toshiya wrote:
>
>> In current draft of UTR#50, the properties for Canadian aboriginal syllabics
>> are defined as "U; S; S;". But seeing the PDFs like

 gives:

1400..167F ; S ; S ; S
1401..167F ; U ; S ; S

which seems to be a mistake.

>>   
>> http://www.gov.nu.ca/save10/English/Documents/Newsletters/Newsletter%203/Newsletter%203%20-%20Inuktitut.pdf
>>   http://www.cley.gov.nu.ca/pdf/Documentary%20Art%20Project_Inuk.pdf
>> it is questionable if the default value "U" is preferred.
>
> I don't know what "U" means, but that rotation is weird and confusing and not 
> legible. In a cross-word, vertical text goes from to to bottom with no 
> rotation.

In UTR#50 "S" means that the glyphs should be rotated 90 degrees
clockwise wrt the Unicode charts, and "U" means that the glyphs should
have the same orientation as in the code charts.  The draft UTR#50
specifies that UCAS glyphs should be unrotated in "in those parts of
the world where characters are mostly upright" (whatever that means)
but rotated clockwise when "used for vertical lines in East Asia".
The big problem with UTR#50 as I see it is that it only deals with
glyph orientation, but with complex and joining scripts such as
Mongolian and Ogham it is runs of text that are rotated in different
orientations, not individual glyphs.  In the two examples linked to
above the UCAS text appears to be rotated counterclockwise in vertical
layout, so that it reads bottom-to-top sideways, which is not a mode
of vertical layout that UTR#50 deals with.

Andrew

Re: Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[Michael Everson]

On 1 May 2012, at 11:16, suzuki toshiya wrote:

> In current draft of UTR#50, the properties for Canadian aboriginal syllabics
> are defined as "U; S; S;". But seeing the PDFs like
>   
> http://www.gov.nu.ca/save10/English/Documents/Newsletters/Newsletter%203/Newsletter%203%20-%20Inuktitut.pdf
>   http://www.cley.gov.nu.ca/pdf/Documentary%20Art%20Project_Inuk.pdf
> it is questionable if the default value "U" is preferred.

I don't know what "U" means, but that rotation is weird and confusing and not 
legible. In a cross-word, vertical text goes from to to bottom with no 
rotation. 

> I cannot exclude the possibility that this rotated text is forced by the
> limitation of printing software, but, the tuning of the positions for
> the small glyphs for glottal stop and final sounds (U+141C - U+142A,
> U+14D0 - U+14D2, etc etc) should be discussed if "U" is preferred value.

You are GUESSING. Don't guess, please.

You cannot rotate Canadian Syllabics because when you do the letter-values 
change. The two examples you have shown are examples of extremely bad 
typographic choices. 

> Does anybody have "manually written" Canadian aboriginal syllabics in 
> vertical writing mode?

Crosswords go from top to bottom with no rotation

J
U
S
T

L
I
L
E

L
A
T
I
N

That is the only thing that is immediately still legible in Syllabics.

Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/

Canadian aboriginal syllabics in vertical writing mode

[suzuki toshiya]

Hi,

In current draft of UTR#50, the properties for Canadian aboriginal syllabics
are defined as "U; S; S;". But seeing the PDFs like

http://www.gov.nu.ca/save10/English/Documents/Newsletters/Newsletter%203/Newsletter%203%20-%20Inuktitut.pdf
http://www.cley.gov.nu.ca/pdf/Documentary%20Art%20Project_Inuk.pdf
it is questionable if the default value "U" is preferred.

I cannot exclude the possibility that this rotated text is forced by the
limitation of printing software, but, the tuning of the positions for
the small glyphs for glottal stop and final sounds (U+141C - U+142A,
U+14D0 - U+14D2, etc etc) should be discussed if "U" is preferred value.

Does anybody have "manually written" Canadian aboriginal syllabics in
vertical writing mode?

Regards,
mpsuzuki