On Fri, Jul 27, 2018 at 8:54 AM, James Kass via Unicode <unicode@unicode.org > wrote:
> https://unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4712-georgian.pdf > > The revised proposal to change the Georgian encoding model from > caseless to casing was convincing and compelling. (It's bilingual, > too, English and Georgian.) > It may look so, but my statement is still correct. This is not the first time, when the consortium mistreats Georgian (one can remember a story of encoding the ecclesiastic minuscule). Just two points: 1) "compelling" (less important). The supporters are either font designers or non-specialists organizations. There are several institutions in Georgia that had to be involved IMHO (like Institute of Georgian Language, Institute of Manuscripts and Academy of Sciences; Ministry of Economy is not an institution competent in the script issues). 2) "convincing". I will not discuss all the controversies here, but will only cite §1.1 and §8: §1.1, on "*Mkhedruli… is caseless, and no casing behaviour is expected or permitted by Georgian users. The mtavruli titling style of Mkhedruli… is not case; it is a style analogous to small caps or bold or italic. <...> Mtavruli-style letters are never used as “capitals”; a word is always entirely presented in mtavruli or not. Mtavruli-style is used in titles, newspaper headlines, and other kinds of headings.*" of the original encoding (N2608R2): — "*This statement was not correct.*" At the same time, §8 on successful implementation of the proposal in question: "*Within a sentence a given word might be written IN ALL CAPS (MTAVRULI) for emphasis. An entire sentence or header may also be written in Mtavruli.*" And all the sample photos of the modern books and journals demonstrate exactly the same behavior as described in N2608R2: " *Mtavruli-style is used in titles, newspaper headlines, and other kinds of headings*". (I can provide more information if needed) The key question is whether Georgian is caseless or not in plain text encoding, and N2608R2 does not provide any evidence for casing in modern Georgian. Basically, the issues addressed are the low level of technical support for implementing small caps in Georgian typesetting (but this must not be Unicode issue) and incorrect idea that small caps must be preserved in plain text encoding (just because someone loves it), it is obvious from §1.1 (right after the text I cited). Sincerely, a.