Rick McGowan wrote at 11:21 AM on Saturday, May 1, 2004: >Peter Kirk wrote... >> I have yet to see ANY EVIDENCE AT ALL >> that ANYONE AT ALL has a need for this encoding. > >Ahem. Define "need". On this list we don't have the right set of people to >ask, actually. That is why the proposal has already been forwarded to >other people on other lists who may (or do) want or "need" the encoding.
I do see that Deborah Anderson has posted a request for comments on the Phoenician proposal (appended below) to some Ancient Near Eastern email lists to which I subscribe. I think this is a great idea, except for the request that all responses be sent to her or to two officials of the Unicode Consortium. I would have preferred that the readers be directed to the Unicode Hebrew email list or encouraged to discuss the topic openly on the Ancient Near Eastern lists. Open discussion is much more helpful and more efficient than isolated responses. 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 ---------------------------------------------- >A proposal to encode Phoenician as a separate script in Unicode has been >received and feedback is requested from scholars who work with >Phoenician. The proposal can be found at: >http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2746.pdf > >Encoding Phoenician in Unicode would enable it to be used in text that >is sent and stored electronically (i.e., email, word-processing >documents, Webpages). > >Key questions that need to be addressed in reviewing this proposal are: > >* Are you in favor of encoding Phoenician in Unicode? > >* Does this proposal cover the characters needed? Is anything missing? >(Note: Unicode does not encode variants.) > >* Are the glyphs (representative pictures in the chart on p. 14) >accurate? (Note: These are intended only to be representative and are >not definitive. A font would offer more variety in the shapes of the >glyphs.) > >* Are the names in the names list (p. 15) acceptable? > >* Is the information in the introduction accurate? > >* The proposal recommends that by using the Phoenician encoding with a >change in font Proto-Sinaitic/Proto-Canaanite, Punic, Neo-Punic, >Phoenician proper, Late Phoenician cursive, Phoenician papyrus, Siloam >Hebrew, Hebrew seals, Ammonite, Moabite, and Palaeo-Hebrew could be >represented. >Is this unification acceptable or would you prefer to have these not >unified? > >Comments on the proposal need to be received by June 7, 2004 (but >preferably earlier). Please send an email message identifying yourself >with your specific comments to me, Deborah Anderson >([EMAIL PROTECTED]), or mail a letter to the two committees >that will be discussing the proposal: > >Lisa Moore >c/o The Unicode Consortium >P.O. Box 391476 >Mountain View, CA 94039-1476 >U.S.A. > >Mike Ksar, Chair ISO JTC1/SC2 WG2 >c/o The Unicode Consortium >P.O. Box 391476 >Mountain View, CA 94039-1476 >U.S.A. > >This is part of a project that works to ensure that Unicode proposals >are properly reviewed by scholars and user communities, the Script >Encoding Initiative. For further information, please see: >www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/~dwanders . > >Deborah Anderson >Project Leader, Script Encoding Initiative >www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/~dwanders >Researcher, Dept. of Linguistics >UC Berkeley >Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >or [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > >