[Egyptian] Towards a deterministic sort for Egyptian Unicode characters

[Michael Everson]

>p. 5 The two writings of HD with the sceptre (T3) and sceptre and 
>snake (T5) should be << not < (cf. wAD on p. 3).

OK

>I'm not sure that HDD should be listed separately. It's not an 
>independently used sign, it's a doubled form of HD.

Well... on page 8 we have both D and DD. Strictly speaking HDD is 
triliteral while HD is biliteral.

>p. 7 the knotted cloth (S24) should read Tz not TAz.

Pasting error. Fixed.

>>2. For signs which have more than one reading, have I chosen the
>>correct one? (One must be chosen, on whatever arbitrary or
>>non-arbitrary basis we have to make it. Options are: (a) which comes
>>first in alphabetical order, (b) which is more frequent, (c) visual
>>similarity to another sign which has an unambiguous reading, or (d)
>>which wins a coin toss.
>
>I don't think there is a always a 'correct' reading of a sign.

I take your point, and didn't mean to imply otherwise.

>There are just relatively common/uncommon readings. Probably best to 
>follow alphabetical order rather than trying to gauge frequency of 
>occurrence which will not always be easy to do.

You'll see from my previous message that (e.g. pAq) it might be best 
to make a case-by-case determination. I guess the way to decide what 
to do is to look at the sorting file and in each instance where it 
says "also" to decide which reading should be given for the default 
sort. Perhaps in most instances it will be relatively easy and then 
we can agonize a bit over the remaining few which are hard.

>>3. Should characters which are proper ideograms be ordered according
>>to their pronunciation?
>
>Not sure I understand the question. Can you give an example of a 
>'proper' ideogram as opposed to an improper one?!

In discussions I've had offline with Nigel and also responding to 
Wolfgang I clarified this a bit more in my mind. Ideograms/logograms 
are signs that actually stand for a particular word, that is, they 
have a reading on their own when alone and not accompanied by 
phonetic complements. Determinatives/semograms are the improper ones, 
since they are just pictures without any specific reading.

As an example, should we order the sun N005 by itself as "ra"?
-- 
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com