KPS 9566 mappings (was Re: Arrow dingbats)

[Andrew West]

As someone who supports opening of KPS 9566 encoded files in my
software (BabelPad), I am interested in those characters proposed by
DPRK (http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/Docs/n2374.pdf) that were not
accepted for encoding but which are still in the latest version of the
DPRK standard, KPS 9566-2012(?). Red Star OS 3.0 Unicode-maps most of
them to the PUA, which is not satisfactory in most cases.

LEFTWARDS SCISSORS = KPS 9566-2012 ACD5

There are five scissors characters at 2700..2704, but they are all
right-facing. I think it would not be unreasonable to encode a
left-facing scissors character for compatibility with KPS 9566.
Alternatively, standardized variants for left-facing and right-facing
scissors could be defined for all 2700..2704, but that might open a
nasty precedent that we come to regret, so I would prefer simply
encoding a single left-facing scissor character.

CIRCLED UPWARD INDICATION = KPS 9566-2012 ACD4

This could be represented as U+1F446 WHITE UP POINTING BACKHAND INDEX
+ U+20DD COMBINING ENCLOSING CIRCLE.

WHITE UP-POINTING TRIANGLE WITH BLACK TRIANGLE = KPS 9566-2012 A2F1
WHITE UP-POINTING TRIANGLE WITH HORIZONTAL FILL = KPS 9566-2012 A2F2
WHITE UP-POINTING TRIANGLE WITH UPPER LEFT TO LOWER RIGHT FILL = KPS
9566-2012 A2F3
WHITE UP-POINTING TRIANGLE WITH UPPER RIGHT TO LOWER LEFT FILL = KPS
9566-2012 A2F4

I don't know why these were not accepted for encoding.  As far as I
can tell, they cannot be represented by any current Unicode character,
and I think it would be reasonable to encode them for compatibility
with KPS 9566.

RIGHT PARENTHESIS WITH FULL STOP = KPS 9566-2012 A1DC
RIGHT DOUBLE ANGLE BRACKET WITH FULL STOP = KPS 9566-2012 A1DD

I understand why these were not accepted for encoding, but the
precedent of U+2047 DOUBLE QUESTION MARK, U+2048 QUESTION EXCLAMATION
MARK, and U+2049 EXCLAMATION QUESTION MARK, which I believe were
encoded because they are used in vertically oriented Mongolian text
and it is problematic to embed ?? etc. horizontally in vertical text
suggests that it may be appropriate to encode these two characters for
compatibility with KPS 9566.

VULGAR FRACTION ONE HALF WITH HORIZONTAL BAR = KPS 9566-2012 A7FA
VULGAR FRACTION ONE THIRD WITH HORIZONTAL BAR = KPS 9566-2012 A7FB
VULGAR FRACTION TWO THIRDS WITH HORIZONTAL BAR = KPS 9566-2012 A7FC
VULGAR FRACTION ONE QUARTER WITH HORIZONTAL BAR = KPS 9566-2012 A7FD
VULGAR FRACTION THREE QUARTERS WITH HORIZONTAL BAR = KPS 9566-2012 A7FE

These contrast with KPS 9566 A7CA..A7CE which are vulgar fractions
with diagonal bar.  The issue of distinguishing between a horizontal
and a diagonal fraction slash is not restricted to North Korea, and I
think that there is an argument to be made for defining standardized
variants for all vulgar fraction characters to specify a glyph with
either a horizontal bar or a diagonal bar.

HAMMER AND SICKLE AND BRUSH
CIRCLED HAMMER AND SICKLE AND BRUSH

I assume that there is no appetite to encode these symbols for the
Workers' Party of Korea, and so mapping them to the PUA is
appropriate.

There is also the proposed VERTICAL TILDE character which was not
accepted for encoding, but which Red Star OS 3.0 Unicode-maps to
U+2E2F VERTICAL TILDE which was added in Unicode 5.1 for Cyrillic
transliteration.  This mapping does not seem wholy satisfactory to me,
and I wonder whether it would not be better to simply encode a
PRESENTATION FORM FOR VERTICAL TILDE at FE1A.

Andrew