While I hesitate to dive in to this argument, Martin makes one comment where I think a point of principle arises:
On 2017-03-27, =?UTF-8?Q?Martin_J._D=c3=bcrst?= <due...@it.aoyama.ac.jp> wrote: [Michael wrote] >> You know, Martin, I *have* been doing this for the last two decades. I’m >> well aware of what a font is and can do. > > Great. So you know that present-day font technology would allow us to > handle the different shapes in at least any of the following ways: > > 1) Separate characters for separate shapes, both shapes in same font > 2) Variant selectors, one or both shapes in same font > 3) Font features (e.g. 1855 vs. 1859) to select shapes in the same font > 4) Font selection, different fonts for different shapes > > Does that knowledge in any way suggest one particular solution? As I've observed before, the intention is that we are stuck with Unicode for as long as our civilization endures, be that 5000 years or 50 years. I contend, therefore, that no decision about Unicode should take into account any ephemeral considerations such as this year's electronic font technology, and that therefore it's not even useful to mention them. All you should need to say is "these letters are too insignificant to merit encoding, and those who believe they need to be able to distinguish them in plain text will just have to use other means, such as ZWJ with the components of the ligature". (I'm not saying that's my view, by the way - I'm more of a splitter than a lumper, and on the basis of this thread, I'm probably on the "encode" side.) -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
