On 5/31/2012 12:03 PM, Doug Ewell wrote:
Another alphabet, even that with 1:1 correspondence to Latin, but, again, not recognizable as such are the "dancing men". They at least can be demonstrated to have appeared in print. Are substitution ciphers candidates for encoding?
To the degree that the use of the substitution is "style", no. Fraktur and Insular forms have been unified for Latin. But these styles are also recognizable (if not to all users, then a significant number). And, there's a benefit in identifying them primarily with the Latin alphabet, and only secondarily with the precise style.
The "dancing men" are more like Braille. There's one source where they have been given a particular "mapping" to the Latin alphabet, but that mapping is not the only one possible. The whole point of them is that the actual mapping has to be known or discovered each time.
So, yes, these would have to be encoded by shape, not by target. A./
