?MP = Multi*lingual* plane?

Richard COOK rscook at unicode.org
Mon Mar 10 18:44:50 CDT 2014


On Feb 27, 2014, at 7:23 AM, Michael Everson wrote:

> On 27 Feb 2014, at 02:32, Shriramana Sharma <samjnaa at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Given that Unicode encodes scripts and not languages, how appropriate is it to call the BMP and the SMP as the multi*lingual* planes?
> 
> You are more than two decades late in asking this.
> 
> It may have seemed more appropriate in an 8-bit code page world where rather small subsets limited the number of languages accessible by one or another part of ISO/IEC 8859. 
> 
> A new term like “multiscriptal” would not have been appropriate. File this under “We know the term ‘ideograph’ is a misnomer."

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 
'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again.



> Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
> 
> 
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