Proposal to add standardized variation sequences for chess notation

[Michael Everson]

On 5 Apr 2017, at 17:28, William_J_G Overington <wjgo_10009 at btinternet.com> wrote:

> Well, whether there is a need to use a ZWJ or no need to use a ZWJ is not here the issue.

There isn’t. We should use VS just as we do with maths and Myanmar characters. 

> I then asked, the question worded differently from how it is worded here, about whether UTC needs to be involved where a character sequence that contains one or more ZWJ characters generates a glyph with a meaning different from the meaning of the original sequence that did not have the one or more ZWJ characters included.

The proposal has been made for Standardized Variation Sequences. 

> For example, p ZWJ p produces a pp ligature with no change of meaning.

A ZWJ is not necessary to produce a pp ligature. 

> For example, where WOMAN ZWJ ROCKET produces a glyph for a LADY ASTRONAUT, thus a change of meaning and I think that it went to UTC as there was a change of meaning but I am not congruently sure of that..

That is a matter of emoji which is not “normal” symbol usage and is not really analogous to what we are discussing here. 

> SQUARE ZWJ CHESSPIECE or CHESSPIECE ZWJ SQUARE produces a CHESSPIECE ON A SQUARE, thus a change of meaning.

No, it’s not. CHESSPIECE is still CHESSPIECE. The glyph for CHESSPIECE needs to be altered in order to make it suitable to use the characters in a way which will permit the presentation and interchange of chessboard matrices. 

Michael Everson