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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-GB link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Hi All<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Mark-Jan, Stéphane and I will be participating remotely in a UTC meeting on Thursday (late afternoon European time). As Stéphane pointed out on Friday (his email is reproduced below) it is desirable we make progress towards establishing a consensus on what form hieroglyphic writing in Unicode should take. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I will therefore try to compile a document the three of us (and others in this group I hope) can agree to by Thursday. Objections or concerns with any points to be listed so UTC have a clear picture of where we are.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I’ll first draft the document tomorrow (Tuesday) and circulate so if you would like to add a top level topic beyond the four below please let me know what you want. Also, if you have any specific objections to state now, drop me an email on list or privately. We can then drill down into detail on unresolved items.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I’ll take the consensus situation a month ago (before Cambridge) as a starting point (1 and 2) then add what I think summarizes other key points (3 and 4).<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>1. EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH HORIZONAL JOINER and EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH VERTICAL JOINER are an acceptable basis to build on.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>TLA and Ramses project were comfortable with this in their April letters to UTC. This remains a consensus item.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>2. Concerns were expressed about EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH LIGATURE JOINER<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>TLA and Ramses project along with Nederhof et al stated they had concerns in their April letters to UTC. This needs to be resolved before we can move forward.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>3. Additional control characters relating to repertoire extension issues<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Control characters such as stack/monogram joiner/insert centre have been floated as alternatives to encoding certain combinations as distinct characters (as is currently the policy for repertoire extension). These could be added as controls at a later stage but are not essential at this point.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>4. Vertical writing and ‘tall group’ support should be better supported from the start<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The 3 control solution focuses too much on horizontal text. The implicit OpenType approach to elements of shaping (as in section 4) is too unpredictable for usability. This should be addressed (see the two Group Joiners for my proposed enhancement to deal with this).<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Bob<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>-----Original Message-----<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>From: Egyptian [<a href="mailto:egyptian-bounces@evertype.com">mailto:egyptian-bounces@evertype.com</a>] On Behalf Of Stéphane polis<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Sent: 28 July 2016 11:38<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>To: Egyptian Hieroglyphs in the UCS <<a href="mailto:egyptian@evertype.com">egyptian@evertype.com</a>><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Subject: Re: [Egyptian] Two group joiners<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Dear Mark-Jan,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Yeap, I do agree.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>As you can see, I’m simply trying to be imaginative and to think about the better possible consensus before the very close deadline (in order not to take the chance for everything to collapse or to go in unwarranted territories, because I do care). As such, I understand perfectly the cost of getting rid of parenthesis; my point is that, as we know that we need to make clusters (and there is not much room for discussion about this basic principle), the only alternative would be this ‘glue-precedence’ operator, discussed in Section 9 of the document, that has not yet been discussed by others. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>It’s one or the other, but there are logically no third option as far as I understand.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>I would like to hear what you and others think about the ‘scope operator’ for the insertion, but to sum up, a basic consensus document for control characters could in my view contain only 8 control characters (and we know that we could handle most [if not all] of the cases discussed so far with these characters, that the scheme will be coherent, that it will be easy to expand with others operators without destroying everything, etc.), namely:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>1) Vertical [:] // Already in MdC and in Bob’s proposal<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>2) Horizontal [*] // Already in MdC in Bob’s proposal<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>3) Groups (precedence operator) [.] // Needed for clusters (insertion, vertical, horizontal) and for avoiding the multiplication of group-joiners of various level in the future.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>4) Top-left [⸥] // Agreed on by most (if not all)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>5) Bottom-left [⸣] // Agreed on by most (if not all)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>6) Top-Right [⸤] // Agreed on by most (if not all)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>7) Bottom-Right [⸢] // Agreed on by most (if not all)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>8) Scope operator [!] // A suggestion to be discussed<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Maybe that a quadrat separator [-] should be added in order to avoid issues, e.g. with multiple corners insertions following one another (but this should be tested of course), and because after all, the basic unit of this writing system is the quadrat (not the sign, even if it happens that 1 sign = 1 quadrat).<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>These operators correspond to a very ‘flat’ and linear syntax (without ‘begin’ and ‘end’ markers that seem to be so problematic), which is a requirement from the Unicode specialists as I understand it.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>If needed, I am ready to leave out of this ‘consensus’ document:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>- The join<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>- The insert-center<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>- The stack<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>- The empty<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Not because I think we don’t need them (I think it would be great to have), but (1) because I would like the discussion to focus on the 8/9 operators above, (2) because these additions are easy to make in a second step and will not impedes much for short term encoding.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>That’s about it for me at the moment. I leave the floor to you, Bob and others. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Let me stress that it’s probably difficult for me/us to make more steps in the direction of a consensus. At this stage, everyone should probably try and understand other’s point of view and accept that compromises are needed rather quickly...<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>As you can see in the summary above, the central point is about the group/precedence operator. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Then the ‘scope’ operator and what you think about it.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>The rest should be easily agreed on.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Unicode is not a one time thing, as Bob said, sure, but one decision can affect all the future developments.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Take care,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Stéphane<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Chercheur qualifié F.R.S.-FNRS<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Université de Liège<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Service d'Égyptologie<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Département des sciences de l’Antiquité<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Place du 20-Août,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>B-4000 Liège<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><a href="http://www.egypto.ulg.ac.be">http://www.egypto.ulg.ac.be</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>