On 30/04/2004 16:32, Kenneth Whistler wrote:
...
Michael keeps pointing out (and others, including the Johns, have recognized) that encoding a set of Phoenician letters does not *require* any Semitic scholar to represent Palaeo-Hebrew text using those letters.
It does *permit* them (or anyone else) to do so -- an option that
they do not have today because, of course, no Phoenician letters
are encoded in the Unicode Standard. Today, one has no option
*except* to use Hebrew letters and choose an appropriate
(non-square-Hebrew) font to display them.
Ken, in one sense the Unicode standard does not REQUIRE anyone to do anything but only PERMITS them to do so. But in another sense, if it fails to REQUIRE anything it becomes a waste of time. And if it requires anything at all beyond the very basic conformance requirements, it can be presumed to require that the Latin blocks are used for Latin script, the Hebrew block for Hebrew script, and so (if and when one is defined) the Phoenician block for Phoenician script. If the Hebrew block is use for Phoenician script (not for transliteration but with masquerading fonts), that is just as much a failure to do what Unicode requires as to use the Latin block for Hebrew script with a legacy encoding.
...
Or shall we just continue debating this issue forever, trying
to decide which half of the baby to give to which party
in the dispute?
Good analogy! But the way round this dilemma is perhaps to look at the evidence from the user community, which is not cited in the proposal.
-- Peter Kirk [EMAIL PROTECTED] (personal) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (work) http://www.qaya.org/
