Idna-update Digest, Vol 27, Issue 100
Vint Cerf
vint at google.com
Mon Mar 30 02:00:55 CEST 2009
Thanks Sarmad, this seems to be the prevailing thought.
Vint Cerf
Google
1818 Library Street, Suite 400
Reston, VA 20190
202-370-5637
vint at google.com
On Mar 29, 2009, at 12:37 PM, Sarmad Hussain wrote:
> We have developed numerous fonts for Urdu and other Pakistani
> languages, in
> Nastalique, Naskh, and Riqa styles (Nafees family of fonts) and
> Tatweel is
> not used either for Nastalique style fonts (with diagonal baseline)
> or with
> Naskh and Riqa style fonts (with horizontal baseline). Tatweel
> could used
> as a justification tool for Arabic script (though even that is not
> required), thus not necessary for font development. It is not a
> character,
> but just an invented formatting character. It has no linguistic
> reality or
> necessity.
>
> Regards,
> Sarmad
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: idna-update-bounces at alvestrand.no
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> Subject: Idna-update Digest, Vol 27, Issue 100
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> Today's Topics:
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> 1. Re: consensus Call: TATWEEL (Martin J. D?rst)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 17:12:53 +0900
> From: "Martin J. D?rst" <duerst at it.aoyama.ac.jp>
> Subject: Re: consensus Call: TATWEEL
> To: Ebw <ebw at abenaki.wabanaki.net>
> Cc: Vint Cerf <vint at google.com>, "idna-update at alvestrand.no"
> <idna-update at alvestrand.no>, John C Klensin <klensin at jck.com>
> Message-ID: <49CF2D85.7010206 at it.aoyama.ac.jp>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Hello Eric,
>
> I understand you are concerned that Tatweel might be needed for the
> ability to render Arabic script in a falling rather than horizontal
> style, and that there might be other 'characters' needed for high-
> quality rendering.
>
> As far as I understand from Tom Milo, a top expert in Arabic
> typography
> implementations, really good Arabic typography requires a lot of
> contextual rules. But he never mentioned the Tatweel.
>
> The more I think about it, the more I actually get the impression that
> the Tatweel is very much linked to horizontal/linear Arabic rendering,
> and not of much use if any for falling or other higher-level kinds
> of renderings. Even for horizontal rendering, the Tatweel is nothing
> more than a crude clutch, as Ken already said.
>
> Regards, Martin.
>
> On 2009/03/23 8:25, Ebw wrote:
>> John,
>>
>> It is clear from your response that you didn't see where my concern
>> lies. If, in our choices of allowable code points, we constrain
>> Arabic
>> (and Farsi and ...) to choices which look correct to Latin
>> expectations, non-descending rather than descending, inaesthetically
>> dense rather than combining and extended, to "2nd gen" computer
>> Arabic
>> (and ...) -- then we may be "solving" one problem by creating
>> another.
>>
>> The choice of which "harm" to choose is easy if all we know is one
>> "harm", and easier when that "harm" is "spoofing" (or last year's
>> child porn or the year before that's Arab terrorist or the year
>> before
>> that's WMD), but we do have the choice to ask if the people who
>> create
>> the basic tools for writing Arabic (and ...) need what we are asked
>> to
>> ban, and because of our shared Latin (and other scripts lacking one
>> or
>> both of the properties, descent and vertical and horizontal
>> interaction) limitations, simply fail to appreciate.
>>
>> If you really do think this is "bold" and "italic" you simply aren't
>> getting it.
>>
>> Eric
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone, painfully.
>>
>> On Mar 22, 2009, at 3:41 PM, John C Klensin<klensin at jck.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> --On Sunday, March 22, 2009 11:43 -0500 Ebw
>>> <ebw at abenaki.wabanaki.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> ...
>>>> I propose we ask modern (3rd gen) Arabic (and Farsi, etc)
>>>> typographers for guidance. I'm not certain the UTC
>>>> motivation is sufficient, nor am I certain the ASIWG, the
>>>> process of which I find insufficiently trasparent, and
>>>> unacceptably vendor-specific, hasn't overlooked use in their
>>>> excessively narrow construction of text labels as "necessary
>>>> words" with the excessive constraints arise from the incorrect
>>>> statement of purpose.
>>> Eric,
>>>
>>> "Consult typographers" sets off an alarm for me. Unicode isn't
>>> supposed to be about typography and certainly domain names
>>> historically have not been. If we do get ourselves into a
>>> situation in which we are consulting typographers, don't we need
>>> to go back and examine the list of Unicode compatibility
>>> characters --many of which seem to be about typographic and
>>> other subtle variations on base characters -- to figure out
>>> which ones the typographers think should be distinguishable
>>> characters (not mapped or prohibited)?
>>>
>>> For example, I would certainly like boldface and italics in my
>>> domain names, even though I recognize that they would cause far
>>> more confusion and problems than they could possibly be worth.
>>> I'd also like to be able to utilize the full range of variations
>>> and artistry in, e.g., Arabic and Chinese calligraphy. And I'd
>>> like a pony :-(
>>>
>>> Vint,
>>>
>>> Yes. I agree with disallowing Tatweel and its N'Ko counterpart.
>>> I do not believe that we should disallow one and not the other.
>>>
>>> john
>>>
>>>
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