Hebrew Extended Block(s)

[Philippe Verdy]

2014-02-22 20:46 GMT+01:00 Robert Wheelock <rwhlk142 at gmail.com>:

> Hello!
>
> There’s an empty subblock (U+00860 — U+0089F) with 64 empty codepoints
> where we could put needed additional Hebrew characters in...
>
> The (U+00860) column could house such things as:
> ·ḪAṬAF-ḪIRIQ (ḫiriq + shǝwaʾ)
> ·ḪAṬAF-QIBBUṢ (qibbuṣ + shǝwaʾ)
> ·TRUE SHURUQ POINT FOR WAW (point inside WAW, but slightly higher up)
> ·WAW WITH SHURUQ (WAW having the TRUE SHURUQ POINT inside)
> ·DOUBLY-POINTED SHIN (a SHIN with both ŚIN and SHIN points atop)
> ·DOUBLY-POINTED SHIN WITH DAGHESH (the preceding letter—only with an added
> DAGHESH inside)
> ·WAW WITH DAGHESH AND ḪOLAM
> ·WAW WITH DAGHESH AND SHURUQ
> ·The 4 DIACRITICAL POINTS ABOVE (single, double horizontal, triple up
> triangle, and quad squared) used to extend the Hebrew alphabet to new
> sounds for other Jewish languages (Judeo-Arabic, ...)
> ·VARIQAʾ HAFUKH (for the same purpose)
> ·GALGAL HAFUKH (to write the Yiddish palatals—instead of using a double
> yudh ligature; also extended to ʿAYIN for writing an /e/ vowel in Yiddish)
>

Most of these are already encoded using multiple codepoints (e.g.
doubly-pointed shin, with or without dagesh).

The Hebrew script is already enough challenging that we don't need to add
complexity by adding even more ways to encode the same thing (and then need
to update the already complex collation rules in which there's been tons of
comments to find solutions already implemented (including solutions already
used to borrow some Arabic combining marks for use within the Hebrew
script).
Some of the characters you propose are just typographic variants.

I suggest you read the PDF document speaking about the development of the
SIL SBL Font, it is really informative about many of these issues and how
that font was designed (according to many discussions that have occured
years ago in this list).I'm convinced that this document should also be
better referenced as an informative technical report for the script
(because it is infact not specific to the SBL font itself).
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