UNICODE UPDATTING
Jimm GoodTracks
goodtracks at gbronline.com
Tue Sep 13 01:20:16 UTC 2005
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
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