Unicode 11 Georgian uppercase vs. fonts

[Alexey Ostrovsky via Unicode]

On Fri, Jul 27, 2018 at 8:54 AM, James Kass via Unicode <unicode at unicode.org
> wrote:

> https://unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4712-georgian.pdf
>
> The revised proposal to change the Georgian encoding model from
> caseless to casing was convincing and compelling.  (It's bilingual,
> too, English and Georgian.)
>

It may look so, but my statement is still correct. This is not the first
time, when the consortium mistreats Georgian (one can remember a story of
encoding the ecclesiastic minuscule).

Just two points:
1) "compelling" (less important). The supporters are either font designers
or non-specialists organizations. There are several institutions in Georgia
that had to be involved IMHO (like Institute of Georgian Language,
Institute of Manuscripts and Academy of Sciences; Ministry of Economy is
not an institution competent in the script issues).
2) "convincing". I will not discuss all the controversies here, but will
only cite §1.1 and §8:
§1.1, on "*Mkhedruli… is caseless, and no casing behaviour is expected or
permitted by Georgian users. The mtavruli titling style of Mkhedruli… is
not case; it is a style analogous to small caps or bold or italic. <...>
Mtavruli-style letters are never used as “capitals”; a word is always
entirely presented in mtavruli or not. Mtavruli-style is used in titles,
newspaper headlines, and other kinds of headings.*" of the original
encoding (N2608R2):
— "*This statement was not correct.*"
At the same time, §8 on successful implementation of the proposal in
question: "*Within a sentence a given word might be written IN ALL CAPS
(MTAVRULI) for emphasis. An entire sentence or header may also be written
in Mtavruli.*" And all the sample photos of the modern books and journals
demonstrate exactly the same behavior as described in N2608R2: "
*Mtavruli-style
is used in titles, newspaper headlines, and other kinds of headings*".
(I can provide more information if needed)

The key question is whether Georgian is caseless or not in plain text
encoding, and N2608R2 does not provide any evidence for casing in modern
Georgian. Basically, the issues addressed are the low level of technical
support for implementing small caps in Georgian typesetting (but this must
not be Unicode issue) and incorrect idea that small caps must be preserved
in plain text encoding (just because someone loves it), it is obvious from
§1.1 (right after the text I cited).

Sincerely,
a.
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