UNICODE UPDATTING

[Louanna Furbee]

>Jimm,

Quick reply.  EMELD is an excellent set of practices (you can read 
about them on the E-MELD web site - you can google it).  I recomment 
it.  They'll probably have other workshops.  Write them to get on a 
list to be notified about them.  Write to Helen Dry (hdry@ 
LinguistList.org, I think is the address).  Louanna

>I was looking over government grants, and it  seems that there was 
>an E-MELD conference for the purpose of standardizing the 
>documentation of languages, especially endangered languages.
>Many people are all ready well into the composing of their 
>particular language dictionary.  The E-MELD conference proposes a 
>number of standards, called "best practices", which includes 
>writting all dictionaries, and other language work using unicode 
>fonts.
>The thought is a good one, that one would no longer have the problem 
>of corruption in the transferr of fonts/ characters from one PC 
>system to another.  In whatever manner, fonts, diacritics, accents 
>etc. that one writes in using Unicode (Latest version 4.0.0), the 
>same will be received and viewed upon the receiving PC, as it was 
>exactly written at the source of origin.PC person   Of course, that 
>will happen now when any PC shares the same fonts as the sender.
>Some of us encountered this problem as we upgraded systems.  My 
>initial Ioway ~ Otoe-Missouria Dictionary, a Siouan Language, was 
>written with a Tandy's from Radio Shack, Inc, which is now an 
>antique system.  Those records composed on the Tandy can no longer 
>be read by my present PC. Fortunately, I had already converted them 
>to a higher windows version,  Yet, in some cases, accents and 
>several special fonts where mutated irregardless.
>What is the thoughts of those who are well into their dictionary 
>work and may be confronted with the task of redoing it all over 
>again in the Unicode fonts.  Is it not unlike the large nations 
>imposing their national language on the minority languages, Tagalog, 
>English, Japanese, et.al., on the individual Filipino, the Native 
>American and Spanish/ Chinease Americans or the Ainu.   The plan for 
>a standard is well meant, but devaluation  sets the course for the 
>minority community language to become an endangered language, and 
>with that, a whole culture world view and way of thinking.  Perhaps 
>it is not the same thing.  What are the thoughts of others, 
>especially those who have had to already go back into their 
>documents and reedit the whole work.
>Jimm


-- 
Prof. N. Louanna Furbee
Department of Anthropology
107 Swallow Hall
University of Missouri
Columbia, MO  65211 USA
Telephones: 573/882-9408 (office)
	   573/882-4731 (department)
	   573/446-0932 (home)
	   573/884-5450 (fax)
E-mail:  FurbeeL at missouri.edu