🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1jutusINNlfa@life.ai.mit.edu> glenn@wheat-chex.ai.mit.edu (Glenn A. Adams) writes:
 > >There are about as many Latin alphabets as there are languages written
 > >with the Latin script, however many of them coincide. But if even if
 > >they coincide, the languages may use different modifiers.
 > 
 > I believe your terminology is problematic here.  There is only one Latin
 > alphabet, namely, the one used by the Romans.  What I think you want to
 > say is that there are many Latin script-based alphabets.  We can distinguish
 > between the Latin alphabet (as used by the romans), and a somewhat
 > artificial construct, the Latin script (as used by various alphabets).
I think Erland meant this indeed.
 > 
 > The Latin script can be though of as the union of symbols contained in
 > all alphabets which are predominantly derived from the symbols used in
 > the Roman alphabet.
I have no problems with this and what followed.  But now my question becomes:
"What is Unicode encoding?".  Scripts?  Writing system?  It is not encoding
the Latin script I think.  Consider for instance the German writing systems
that have been used.  Fraktur.  Is that a different font?  Suetterlin.  Is
that a different font?  Many would think the latter not predominantly derived
from the symbols used in the Roman alphabet.  I see them as being more
derived from the Germanic Runes.  Still, there is a 1<->1 corespondence
between the symbols in the Suetterlin script and the German version of the
Latin script (I think).  (I have some printed stuff in the Suetterlin script.
I think there are very few people on the net able to read it, even in
Germany.  Below follows an approximation of lower case e:
	/| /|
	 |/ |
	 |  |
	 |  |
When there is interest I could scan in an advertisement in Suetterlin and
mail it around.)

 > The decision on whether to unify the symbols drawn from a collection of
 > alphabets (i.e., to form a unified script which can represent the
 > different alphabets) should be based on the utility of performing
 > unification and not on linguistic or cultural relations among the
 > different alphabets [see my previous message on Script unification].
I think you should add that unification of different scripts is possible
iff the scripts can be viewed as just being font changes (although the
derivation of the scripts can be completely different).  So while you
can unify the Suetterlin and the Latin script, you can not unify Latin
and Greek script although Latin is derived from Greek.
-- 
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj  amsterdam, nederland
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn  amsterdam, nederland; e-mail: dik@cwi.nl