Doug Ewell wrote at 3:07 PM on Friday, May 21, 2004:
>Dean Snyder <dean dot snyder at jhu dot edu> wrote: > >> ... And since Japanese and Fraktur are not separately encoded just >> because there would be lots of people who would use such an encoding, >> why would you, on that same faulty basis, support a separate encoding >> for Phoenician? > >Where are you getting this from? > >You asserted yesterday that "so many people will embrace a new Fraktur >range." I asserted that there was no such demand. Now you say again >that lots of people want a separate Fraktur encoding.
Yes, lots of people do - they are called mathematicians.
And last I looked, we gave them not one, but two separate ranges for Fraktur symbols
from 1D4504 to 1D537, and from 1D56C to 1D59F.
> >Since you are the one trying to draw an analogy between Phoenician and >Fraktur, in terms of demand for separate encoding, I think the burden is >on you to prove that such a demand exists for Fraktur. Otherwise the >analogy is pointless.
I've never said there was a demand for it; I've only said that lot's of people would USE it if it were encoded. That is my opinion. Do you disagree that lots of people would use a Fraktur encoding?
For ordinary text, few people will need the separately encoded Fraktur. Its much easier to enter it as Latin and apply a font shift.
(Especially if we're using "lots", as I am, in comparison to the number of people who we think would use separately encoded Phoenician.) And if separate Fraktur and Roman German encodings WERE used you would face the same kinds of problems we would face with separately encoded Phoenician and Jewish Hebrew.
A./
