At 18:16 -0500 2003-12-11, Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> > >It omits Syriac
>>
>> No it doesn't.
>
>Which of the 52 names that were posted do you claim stands for Syriac?

Um, "Syriac", Peter. http://www.unicode.org/roadmaps/bmp/ Row 07

> > >and (apparently) Chinese,
>>
>> No it doesn't. It lists CJK Unified Ideographs.
>
>No, it doesn't.

http://www.unicode.org/roadmaps/bmp/ Row 4E

> > >and lists Japanese three times
>> >(Han "ideographs," hiragana, katakana),
>>
>> It doesn't. It doesn't list "Japanese" at all.
>
>No, it lists three separate "scripts" that together constitute most of
>the Japanese writing system.

That's what I said. It lists Hiragana and Katakana, two
closely-related syllabaries with distinct usages, and CJK Unified
Ideographs, of which a fairly small subset is used in writing the
Japanese language.

> > >puts a country name ("Myanmar") for a language/script name,
>>
>> At the request of the National Standards organization of the Union of
>> Myanmar. Many of us didn't like that, but that's the name which was
>> approved for the standard.
>>
>> >lists at least one auxiliary phonetic system (Bopomofo)
>>
>> Bopomofo is a script of its own.
>>
>> >but not another (IPA),
>>
>> IPA is the Latin script with extensions.
>
>The more you tell me about Unicode (never mind this ridiculous "Roadmap"
>thing), the more cockamamie it seems.

Then, with respect, sir, you haven't put in much work to learn about
it. Unicode is *the* character set with which we will one day be able
to record all of the recorded history of mankind, insofar as its
writing systems are deciphered.

Bopomofo is not Han. It has shapes which might be related, but it is
used in a very different way, and in a specific context.

The IPA is a set of extensions to the Latin alphabet. It would be a
mistake to pretend that it is a separate script from Latin, because
there is so much overlap between the basic Latin alphabet and IPA
transcription. Further, many IPA transcriptions "graduated" to the
status of natural orthography, for instance in Africa, and the
lower-case IPA characters acquired upper-case forms.

> > >includes quite a few that are marginal at best and probably fully
>> >obsolete -- in short, what's "the Roadmap"?
>>
>> It is a map of actual and proposed allocations to the Universal
>> Character Set. It is an aid to the technical work of enabling people
>> to write the world's writing systems with computers.
>
>Why is it called "Roadmap"? Did you come up with that before or after
>the latest Mideast Peace Proposal with the same name?

I developed the Roadmap years ago. The first reference to it in my
inbox is November 1997, and it was already known well enough to cite
by then.

It's a Roadmap because the Unicode Project is a very big one, and
there is much work to be done in order to finish encoding the scripts
which we have yet to encode. The Roadmap helps us to do this. With it
we are able to determine how much space we have and what can fit into
it. We are able to use it in some way to prioritize the work we do.
It shows what has been standardized, what has been accepted for
ballotting, what has been proposed, and what hasn't had any work done
on it at all. It is a useful tool, and it has a lot of scripts listed
in it.

> >>>In addition, the status of Blissymbolics, Sutton Signwriting,and Braille
> >>> is debatable.
> >>
> >>They're "scripts"?
> >
> >They are ordered collections of graphic elements used to convey human
> >language in writing. Indeed they are worthy of study.
>
>Is that your definition of "script"? What language does Blissymbolics
>convey? What language does Braille convey?

It is not a formal "definition", no. It is description enough to
explain to you why we want to encode them. Human beings use them to
communicate with one another in writing.

Charles Bliss' Blissymbolics language has its own grammar. On the
ground that grammar is modified somewhat to suit the spoken languages
used by the people communicating with the non-speaking people who
communicate using Bliss. But Bliss is linguistically robust, and has
been studied as a means for communication. In many ways it is
superior to other "symbol systems" used with non-speaking people,
precisely because it has grammatical functionality built into it.
Interestingly, it could be said that it is truly ideographic, because
no particular sounds are built into the characters. A text written by
a Finnish Bliss user can be read by an English-speaking one without
too much difficulty. Bliss has a non-trivial vocabulary and
neologisms can be coined.

Braille functions more or less as a cypher for other writing systems.
It's not so "scriptlike" in that sense.
--
Michael Everson * * Everson Typography * * http://www.evertype.com