A proposed solution for descriptions (was: Re: ISO 639 - New item approved - N'Ko)

[John Cowan]

Doug Ewell scripsit:

> Originally I was opposed to adding new Description values to solve this 
> problem, but Mark's and Richard's arguments have thoroughly convinced me 
> that this is necessary, and isn't a slippery slope that would lead to 
> dozens of Description strings for every subtag.  I stand corrected, and 
> no, I don't mind being called a flip-flopper.

I have followed the same path as you and come to almost the same
conclusion except in one point.

I think that there is no reason to have both ' and ߣ, because
both of them are punctuation apostrophes.  &#2019 exists because it
is unambiguously a right-hand quotation mark, but for normal use
of apostrophes we need no such ambiguity, and using ' directly
suffices.  Therefore, I propose that only N'Ko be present, not
N’Ko, and likewise for all other words using punctuation
apostrophes.

I do agree that Ge'ez and Gwich'in and the others that require
*letter* apostrophes should exist in dual form, with ' and with
the proper Unicode characters.  Michael's notes tell us which
are which.

-- 
After fixing the Y2K bug in an application:     John Cowan
        WELCOME TO <censored>                   cowan at ccil.org
        DATE: MONDAK, JANUARK 1, 1900           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan