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

Ciarán Ó Duibhín ciaran at oduibhin.freeserve.co.uk
Tue Jun 20 15:06:06 CEST 2006


Further to my previously-mentioned doubts that the processing expected of a
"right single quote" character could possibly be appropriate to the mark in
the name "N'Ko", I have come to the view that "N’Ko" looks like a
meaningless character string, and I would not support introducing it as a
description.

This is a separate question from the glyph used to display either ’
or ', which does not affect any decision on how to encode the name.

We need "N'Ko" (where ' stands for ') as an ASCII fallback at least.
If no one in this forum knows how the mark in "N'Ko" ought to be processed,
and therefore what the most appropriate character to encode the mark would
be, I suggest we keep "N'Ko" as the only description of the name for the
present.  If necessary we can another — meaningful — description when we
know how the mark should be processed.

In the case of "Côte d'Ivoire" there is no such doubt.  The mark functions
and should be processed as an apostrophe ('), not as a right single
quote (’).

Ciarán Ó Duibhín




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