New technology improves syllabics on the web (fwd)

[MiaKalish@LFP]

> Another issue is the order of diacritics added to the base characters,
which can
> be important for searching, sorting, etc.

This is not a problem with pre-composed characters, but opens issues of
protocols (which can be violated) and meta-font interfaces. (I just made up
meta-font, and what it means is that the composed characters are "globbed
together" and given a new reference, rendering the sequence of aggregation
moot.)

Thanks, Don, for your throught-provoking comments.

Mia

----- Original Message -----
From: "Donald Z. Osborn" <dzo at BISHARAT.NET>
To: <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2004 12:31 AM
Subject: Re: New technology improves syllabics on the web (fwd)


> Interesting thread. I'll be passing the news along (also noticed mention
of
> Glyphgate on another list).
>
> The "build these characters on the fly" Mia mentions is called "dynamic
> composition." In principle, with a newer system that can position the
> "combining diacritics" properly (e.g., cedilla or accent), this works
fine. On
> older systems, that's another matter - hence this discussion.
>
> The issue of precomposed vs. dynamically composed characters has been
somewhat
> controversial in Africa (at least at one conference), with some arguing
for
> more precomposed characters in Unicode/ISO-10646. However it doesn't seem
that
> Unicode will change its decision not to add more precomposed Latin
characters
> and ultimately (eventually) the technology will render the issue moot.
>
> Another issue is the order of diacritics added to the base characters,
which can
> be important for searching, sorting, etc.
>
> Don Osborn
> Bisharat.net
>
>
>
> Quoting "MiaKalish at LFP" <MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US>:
>
> > Hi, Keola,
> >
> > I don't know too much about Hawai'ian, except that its so beautiful.
> >
> > Can you give us a quick overview of how many letters are different and
how
> > different the glyphs are? For Apache, we have the en-yay (n with a tilde
> > over it) and the voiceless l, both of which are available in UTF-8 and
> > Unicode. But we also have upper-lower case vowels with both the acute
accent
> > and the cedilla, indicating nasalized, rising tone. The Unicode people
have
> > said that we can use the new script to build these characters on the
fly,
> > but the new script requires newer operating system capabilities, and has
the
> > usual platform problems.
> >
> > There's some Apache on the menus at
> > http://learningforpeople.us/MALibrary/index.htm. There aren't any of
these
> > double characters, but you can see both the acute and the cedilla on the
> > vowels.
> >
> > best,
> > Mia
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Keola Donaghy" <keola at LEOKI.UHH.HAWAII.EDU>
> > To: <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
> > Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 11:58 AM
> > Subject: Re: New technology improves syllabics on the web (fwd)
> >
> >
> > > FWIW, we used Glyphgate (previously Fairy) for Hawaiian several years
ago
> > > and worked with the developer to strengthen Hawaiian and Polynesian
> > > support, but eventually abandoned it and just converted our site to
> > > straight UTF-8. The company was very responsive and helpful, but I
found
> > > myself spending far too much time tweaking the settings for broswers
that
> > > did not require the plugin to display the language. Perhaps it's
easier
> > > now. If anyone wants more details feel free to contact me directly.
> > >
> > > Keola
> > >
> > > Indigenous Languages and Technology <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
writes:
> > > >yes, i was impressed myself.  maybe it can be used to assist the
> > > >readability of fonts for other indigenous languages and communities.
> > >
> > >
> > >
 =======================================================================
> > > Keola Donaghy
> > > Assistant Professor of Hawaiian Studies
> > > Ka Haka 'Ula O Ke'elikolani             keola at leoki.uhh.hawaii.edu
> > > University of Hawai'i at Hilo
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~donaghy/
> > >
 =======================================================================
> > >
> >
>
>