There are cases of words which start with spacing combining marks, for which there are no separate Unicode characters. For example, there are some unusual biblical Hebrew word forms (Ketiv consonants with Qere vowels, the forms printed in Hebrew Bibles) which start with spacing combining marks. For some examples (in fact this is intended to be an exhaustive list of such words), see http://www.qaya.org/academic/hebrew/Ketiv-Qere-difficult.pdf, the "blended forms" column of rows with the note "point before word".
This UTC decision leaves is in a situation in which such words need to be represented in Unicode with NBSP and combining marks at the start of a word. Does this lead to problems with HTML, XML etc? Are there cases in which this word initial NBSP will be combined with a preceding word space, and so the intended word spacing and break opportunity (before the NBSP) may be lost?
In the Hebrew case, it is probably necessary to precede the NBSP with RLM to ensure that the NBSP and combining mark are taken with the rest of the word as right-to-left. Does this inserted RLM affect the situation with HTML, XML etc?
-- Peter Kirk [EMAIL PROTECTED] (personal) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (work) http://www.qaya.org/
