Moving Right Along on the Inclusions Table...

[Michael Everson]

At 17:15 -0800 2006-12-20, Kenneth Whistler wrote:
>  > Ethiopic word space, please. It is used as we use hyphens, and the
>>  use of hyphen for that purpose is unknown to them.
>
>I disagree on that one. It is basically a word separator,
>derived from the even earlier inscription rule "|" separator,
>and isn't a hyphen.

I meant that it is the Ethiopic wordspace is used as a visible space, 
as we use the hyphen in  IDN since we can't use a space. Now, in 
English, we are OK with "new-york.com", but "addis-ababa.et" 
introduces something that is not part of Ethiopic, and which doesn't 
need to be introduced because they already have a character which 
does this.

>So I think it is functionally much closer to a SPACE than a
>hyphen, and I don't see a compelling argument for making it
>an exception for Ethiopic punctuation in the inclusion
>list.

See above, you misunderstood me.

>Unlike the geresh and gershayim for Hebrew, it isn't an essential 
>component needed to build words in recognizable forms.

They have something that naturally does the job

>Now I know Daniel Yacob has asked that Ethiopian ":" be
>treated as a connector for identifiers, as it would be
>a more naturally readable way for Ethiopians to string
>together words for multiword identifiers, a la
>the underscore in C: multiple_word_identifier_example.

If you think the underscore is a natural thing. The point is that the 
ETHIOPIC WORDSPACE (which is not the COLON character) is already 
there in Ethiopic script. Why ask them to use "-" or indeed "_"? They 
have something already that does the job.

>But I think *that* discussion belongs in the realm of specialized
>syntax extensions for programming languages, much the way
>"_" is handled, for example.

This is wayyyyy out in left field, and has nothing to do with 
ETHIOPIC WORDSPACE.

>I think the argument is identical for Ethiopic ":", and stronger, if 
>anything, because that particular bit of punctuation is confusable 
>with an important syntax element in URLs.

I can't see how this could cause any actual difficulty. The colon 
syntax element occurs in only one position, as in http:// or ftp:// 
and if someone accidentally put an ETHIOPIC WORDSPACE in there the 
only thing that would happen is that the browser wouldn't go anywhere.

>"-" is the only exceptional bit of punctuation that gets carried 
>forward, I think, and it has to be simply because of prior use in 
>ASCII-based domain names.

And the question of whether it is right to force that on Ethiopic 
which has its own delimiter is one which I think it is legitimate to 
ask.
-- 
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com