On 2016-10-10, Michael Everson <ever...@evertype.com> wrote: > On 10 Oct 2016, at 21:04, Julian Bradfield <jcb+unic...@inf.ed.ac.uk> wrote: >> >> Linguists don't need internationalization. They use IPA or other notations. > > We need reliable plain-text notation systems. Otherwise distinctions we wish > to encode may be lost.
We have no need to make such distinctions in "plain text". It's convenient to have major distinctions easily accessible without font hacking, but there's no need to have every notation one might dream up forcibly incorporated into "plain text". In particular, for super/subscripts, which is where we came in, even the benighted souls using Word still typically recognize and can use LaTeX notation. -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.