Please note that Braille is used also for Hebrew. We use the same codes, but they are assigned a different meaning. The reader has to know or guess which language it is.
I don't remember whether Hebrew Braille is written RTL or LTR. Jony > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Asmus Freytag > Sent: Monday, October 06, 2003 8:58 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Unicode Public Review Issues update > > > At 10:29 AM 10/6/03 +0530, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > The Unicode Technical Committee has posted some new issues for > > > public review and comment. Details are on the following web page: > > > > > > http://www.unicode.org/review/ > > > >A question about the issues already open: What is the > justification for > >proposing to make Braille Lo? > > Among other things it would make it part of identifiers. > However, there's > been some suggestion that this is a bad idea. Whether or not > a braille > symbol actually stands for a letter or a digit or a > punctuation mark is > entirely dependent on a higher level protocol. > > Also, by making them Lo, any parser that tries to collect > words, would run > them together with any surrounding regular letters and > digits. That seems > odd, but perhaps its not any more odd than mixing Devanagari and Han. > > We've given Braille a script ID, since it's used for running > text, unlike a > string of symbols. > > There was a lot of discussion in the meeting which is the > reason why UTC is > asking for public input before deciding. > > The original model for these was that your text processing is done in > non-Braille, and on the last leg to a device, you would transcode the > regular text to a Braille sequence using a domain and > language specific > mapping. Having the codes in Unicode allows you to preserve > 'final form' > and transmit that as needed w/o having to also transmit the > text-to-braille > mapping(s) that were used to generate the Braille version of > the text. > (This assumes that the eventual human reader can do 'autodetection'.) > > Needless to say, conceived this way, Braille does not fit neatly into > Unicode's text handling model. The General Category, being > very simplistic, > can only express a single aspect of a characters use. Usually > we can agree > on what that primary aspect is, so gc is reasonably useful as > a quick cut. > However, Braille is a bit resistant if put to the question: > Are you symbol > or letter? > > In reality, the Braille codes are glyph codes. We decided at > some point not > to allow any new types of gc values. If we didn't have that > restriction, we > could assign them an *Sb or *Lb (for *Symbol-Braille or > *Letter-Braille). > But that's an option we don't have. > > One thing that we are hoping to learn is whether people are > actually using > these Braille codes and are using them in ways that are or are not > compatible with the model we describe in > http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode4.0.0/ch14.pdf (see > section 14.9). > In terms of the organization of the book we've clearly sorted > Braille among > the symbols, by the way. > > Any comments? > > A./ > > > >