suzmccarth wrote:

>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, John Cowan <cowan@...> wrote:
> > Peter T. Daniels scripsit:
> >
> > > > So Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac are not abjads?
> > >
> > > Unvocalized, they are. Add the points, and they're alphabets.
> >
> > Most modern Arabic and Hebrew texts, however, are neither fully
> pointed
> > nor fully unpointed: rather, they are strategically pointed with
> matres
> > lectionis.
> >
> > > > He said he was misled by the way *Unicode* encodes Ethiopic:
> one code per
> > > > sillable, as it does with genuine syllabaries such as katakana
> or Cherokee.
> > >
> > > Well, Unicode has nothing to do with script typology! It just
> does
> > > things as they're convenient. Doesn't it have to handle
> syllabically the
> > > Indic scripts that have idiosyncratic treatments of -u, for
> instance (I
> > > think Malayalam is one of them)?
> >
> > No. All nine Indic scripts are encoded in exactly the same way,
> and all
> > presentation issues are left up to the script engine or font
> engine.
>
> I was suddenly enlightened. Peter Daniels doesn't know how things
> are encoded in Unicode and what terms are being used.

and he doesn't care ... he doesn't need to know how the computer-jocks
get the scripts to come out right on the screen.

> Here goes:
>
> Korean - encoded by phoneme and syllable

(what does that _mean_??)

> Cree - the pepipopa - encoded by syllable
>
> Ethiopic - the abugida - encoded by syllable
>
> Indic scripts, including Tamil - the Akhsaramala (which refers to
> the V and CV components) - encoded by phoneme only, no syllables
>
> So a few months ago I went to a Unicode member's website and I read
> that the Tamil script is an abugida. Well, I think okay, let's have
> it - where is it? I was thinking that this was said becase Tamil
> might be treated by Unicode like the Abugida. However, I understand
> now that it was not meant that way.
>
> I am hoping that Unicode members will be encouraged to say something
> like 'Tamil, and Indic scripts, have an Aksharamala and the aksharas
> will be displayed if you have a USP10.dll version 471.' Now that
> would be useful information.
>
> Does this begin to explain why Suzanne is so confused? None of
> this "you are a only a user so why do you care what goes on behind
> the scenes?" Instead how about "the aksharas will be displayed by
> the USP10, please check to see if you have one." If Unicode members
> could use the term Aksharamala, I would think that those of us who
> use Indic scripts might feel more at home.

--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...