Variation Sequences (and L2-11/059)

Janusz S. Bień via Unicode unicode at unicode.org
Mon Jul 16 00:07:58 CDT 2018


FAQ (http://unicode.org/faq/vs.html) states:

    For historic scripts, the variation sequence provides a useful tool,
    because it can show mistaken or nonce glyphs and relate them to the
    base character. It can also be used to reflect the views of
    scholars, who may see the relation between the glyphs and base
    characters differently. Also, new variation sequences can be added
    for new variant appearances (and their relation to the base
    characters) as more evidence is discovered.

It states also:

   What variation sequences are valid?
   Only those listed in StandardizedVariants.txt...

However the file in question contains only sections for mathematics and
some rather exotic scripts.

To the best of my knowledge, the only attempt to introduce additional
variation sequences was the strongly criticised Karl Pentzlin's proposal
L2-11/059

http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2011/11059-latin-cyr-var.pdf

What has happen to it? I don't remember any information about it on the
list.

However my primary question is:

Are variation sequences *really* recommended for historical scripts?

I ask the question because there are now several historical corpora of
Polish under development, which use at present a kind of fall-back or
some other ad hoc solutions for "nonce glyphs", as they are called in
the FAQ.

Best regards

Janusz

-- 
             ,   
Janusz S. Bien
emeryt (emeritus)
https://sites.google.com/view/jsbien


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