Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics—Missing Syllable Characters

Jean-François Colson jf at colson.eu
Wed Jul 16 09:58:25 CDT 2014


Le 16/07/14 14:45, Jean-François Colson a écrit :
>
> Le 15/07/14 04:07, Robert Wheelock a écrit :
>> Hello!
>
> Hello
>
>
>>
>> I just started to make an ASDF layout for the Innuktitut syllabics 
>> characters (in association with Fontboard).
>
> Where can I find Fontboard’s official website ?
>
>
>>   The syllabic charcters are assigned to their (closest match) Innuit 
>> Latin keys (/a/ on A, /pa/ on P, ...) as follows:
>>
>> VOWELS:
>> /ai/ (e)    E /i/ I /u/ (o)    U /a/    A
>>
>> INDEPENDENT CONSONANT
>> /h/    O
>>
>> -/AI/ SYLLABLES
>> /pai/    <SH>B /tai/ <SH>D /kai/    <SH>G /gai/ (tse)    <SH>J
>> /mai/    <SH>? /nai/ <SH>~ /sai/    <SH>Z /lai/ <SH>|
>> /jai/ (ye) <SH>F /vai/ (fe)    <SH>V /rai/ <SH>Q /lhai/ (lhe)    <SH>{
>>
>> -/I/ SYLLABLES
>> /pi/    B /ti/ D /ki/    G /gi/ (tsi)    J /mi/ / /ni/    ` /si/    Z 
>> /li/    \
>> /ji/ (yi)    F /vi/ (fi)    V /ri/    Q /lhi/    [
>>
>> -/U/ SYLLABLES
>> /pu/    <SH>P /tu/ <SH>T /ku/    <SH>K /gu/ (tso)    <SH>C
>> /mu/    <SH>M /nu/ <SH>N /su/    <SH>S /lu/ <SH>L
>> /ju/ (yo) <SH>Y /vu/ (fo)    <SH>W /ru/ <SH>R /lhu/ (lho)    <SH>}
>>
>> -/A/ SYLLABLES
>> /pa/    P /ta/ T /ka/    K /ga/ (tsa)    C /ma/ M /na/    N /sa/    S 
>> /la/    L
>> /ja/ (ya)    Y /va/ (fa)    W /ra/    R /lha/    ]
>>
>
> I have a few questions:
> — How do you handle the final consonants?
> — How do you type long syllables (those with a dot above)? with a dead 
> key or with the Alt Gr (= right Alt) key?
> — There are a few missing characters in your description:
>      • ? : You could map it to Shift + ? (Shift + O).
>      • ? ? ? ? (qai qi qu qa): You could map them to the still unused 
> keys H and X.
>      • ? ? ? ? (ngai ngi ngu nga): There’s no room left for them. If 
> you applied your general scheme (pai = Shift + pi, pu = Shift + pa), 
> you could move ? to Shift + ? and ? to Shift + ?. That way, the keys E 
> and U could be freed to accept ? ? ? ?.
>      • ? ? ? (nngi nngu nnga): I have no idea where you could put them.
> — ? replaces the ?. Aren’t there any question marks in Inuktitut?
>
>
>> There are quite a few _/missing/_ syllablics characters:
>> ·The character for the syllable /lhai/ (lhe) (like a horizontally 
>> mirrored /lhi/, or a rotated /lha/)
>
> Once upon a time, the ai-pai-tai… syllables were discarded in 
> Inuktitut because there weren’t enough room for the whole syllabary on 
> the daisy wheel of an electric typewriter.
> Later, they were readopted in Nunavik, but not in Nunavut where ? is 
> still written ??.
> Apparently, ? ? ? ? ? ? ? are used only at the West of Hudson’s Bay 
> (in Nunavut). Therefore, there is no need for a lhai syllable.
> If you have examples of use of that syllable, please share them with 
> us and the powers that be could perhaps investigate a little about it.
>
>
>> ·The characters for the entire /sp/- series (shown on Wikipedia’s 
>> article on UCAS as copies of ZESS, Z, N, and Russian Cyrillic 
>> I-OBROTNOYE)
>
> I suppose ? and ?, which are used for l and r in some languages, come 
> from there, and their finals, ? and ?, were not forgotten.
> But you’re right : those letters, which look like Z, reversed Z, N, 
> and ? were completely forgotten.
> Perhaps they were judged too archaic to be encoded.
> But now, Unicode includes hieroglyphs, cuneiforms, and many other old 
> scripts, so I think those characters could be considered for a proposal.
>

I wonder whether there are any relations between those missing syllables 
and the Cree ? ? ? ? (she shi sho sha).


>
>> Where would y’all think about where to place these still-missing UCAS 
>> characters?!?!
>> Thank You!
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
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