Moving Right Along on the Inclusions Table...

Cary Karp ck at nic.museum
Thu Dec 21 10:38:42 CET 2006


Quoting Ken (quoting Michael):

>> Ethiopic word space, please. It is used as we use hyphens, and the
>> use of hyphen for that purpose is unknown to them.
> 
> 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. Unlike the geresh and
> gershayim for Hebrew, it isn't an essential component needed to build
> words in recognizable forms.

Before anyone else points it out, the maqaf is not justifiable on the
latter ground, either. It is functionally and graphically close enough
to the hyphen that I wouldn't have argued separate need for it. On top
of that, if a maqaf appears in a label together with an incorrectly
rendered rafe, those two marks can easily be confused. (There is quite a
bit more that can be said about the Hebrew vowel points in their own
right, but that is probably best left for separate discussion. In my
opinion, they provide a perfect illustration of an issue that we have to
leave for resolution in registry policy.)

> "-" 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.

The essence of the argument about internationalizing the H in LDH is
whether the legacy hyphen should be taken to justify the inclusion of a
functionally similar mark in other scripts to which the hyphen is alien,
or whether the hyphen is simply something that may be used or not
depending on the extent to which it can be shoehorned into an
orthographic context in which it otherwise does not appear.

Before leaving it to Ken to decide whether to remove the maqaf from the
inclusion table (with thanks for his having given it the benefit of the
doubt), it may be worth noting differences between its directional
properties and those of the hyphen. As John pointed out in a discussion
triggered by a political tiff at the IGF, it might be reasonable to
permit the use of alternate forms of hyphens if a condition can be
imposed that does not permit the mixed use of the script-specific form
with the common one.

/Cary


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