At 22:48 -0400 2004-04-28, Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
The script spectrum is inarguably a continuum, and it's a matter of how many snapshots or branches to encode, and which ones. And of course, *who* gets to make that decision. It's something to be approached with some care, but perhaps it's smarter *not* to approach it with care, since a careful, detailed study involving more than one single decision-maker is almost certain to produce nearly endless debate and no decisions!
We took care, and produced N2311. There is a script chart there with nodes. Some of those nodes might be argued about. We might look at more charts and revise it more. Perhaps Mark and I will have some time to do that when I visit him after the weekend. But when encoding nodes of scripts, we don't want to back-date. Samaritan will be encoded. It descends from what has been proposed as a unified Phoenician. Hebrew also descends from it, via an Aramaic stage which may or may not be unique enough to encode. Samarican certainly does not descend from Hebrew.
I think there probably should be more than one branch, and I can certainly see no easy way to agree on how many or which.
At least some of us have tried. -- Michael Everson * * Everson Typography * * http://www.evertype.com
