Font-related problem for linguists

[Peter Kahrel]

Don,

Not a silly question at all: it's a common problem. The trouble is that 
a and its 'slanted' equivalent have no Unicode position. Charis's 
behaviour to italicise a as a slanted is an annoying feature, but 
designed and expected. You should appeal to the Unicode consortium 
(www.unicode.org), not to SIL, so that type foundries (such as SIL) can 
place the character somewhere. (Such a request should be pending but it 
won't harm if you remind the consortium: the more requests, the quicker 
the fix.)

As you said, in the meantime you can create a font with a and its 
slanted equivalent (if you know how). Use that for your own purposes. 
Use a position from the Private Use range, say E000. Then when you 
submit a text for publication, tell the editor that E000 represents a 
and its slanted version, and give them your font. If the typesetters 
can't deal with that, the publisher should find someone else.

Peter