Unicode Mail List Archive: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re: Re: Exemplar Characters?= (original) (raw)

From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Marc Brugui=E8res?= (marcbruguieres@ifrance.com)
Date: Tue Nov 15 2005 - 13:26:54 CST

Next message: Chris Harvey: "Re: Apostrophes (was Re: Exemplar Characters)"

Michael Everson:
> At 09:42 -0500 2005-11-15, Chris Harvey wrote:
>
> >Would this mean that the choice between U+2019 and U+02BC is decided
> >by the phonetic realisation of the apostrophe?
>
> Maybe. There isn't a rule, any more than there is a rule about the
> phonetic value of in any particular language.
>
> Polynesian languages should all use the modifier letters, for
> consistency. It's a glottal there.

Did they before Unicode? Do they do now? If their usage differs, isn't this causing a bit of confusion? (I doubt U+02BC is very much used as it is not in standard fonts like Times Roman on XP SP2 and U+2019 is readily available...)

Does word highlighting work less well in Breton than in Polynesian languages because Breton, let's say, would use U+2019 and the other U+02BC? Don't think so. At least it is not the case in Word 2003 on XP, in fact U+2019 for Breton works better inside of words than U+02BC which breaks them, incidentally this is strange for a modifier I would say.

Isn't this a case of overunification? Looks the same to users, seems it should behave the same way (in fact whether an apostrophe breaks a word or not is language dependent[1]). Why two characters? For extra confusion and spoofing fun?

-- Marc [1] That is even too simple : "� pied d'oeuvre" makes 4 words (�, pied, de, oeuvre, four dictinct entries in a dictionary) but "aujourd'hui" or "chef-d'oeuvre" are singles words (one entry in a dictionary). Strictly speaking, a dictionary is necessary although obviously cheaper software may approximate algorithmically.

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