Will TAGALOG LETTER RA, currently in the pipeline, be in the next version of Unicode?

[Ken Whistler via Unicode]

On 10/12/2019 3:15 AM, Fred Brennan via Unicode wrote:
> There seems to be no conscionable reason for such a long delay after the
> approval.
>
> If that's just how things are done, fine, I certainly can't change the whole
> system. But imagine if you had to wait two years to even have a chance of
> using a letter you desperately need to write your language? Imagine if the
> letter "Q" was unencoded and Noto refused to add it for two more years?

Well, as long as we are imagining things, then consider a scenario where 
the UTC is presented a proposal for encoding a writing system which is 
reported as an historic artifact of the 18th century, "fallen out of 
normal use", yet encodes it anyway based on the proposal provided in 1999:

https://www.unicode.org/L2/L1999/n1933.pdf

and publishes it in Unicode 3.2 in 2002:

https://www.unicode.org/standard/supported.html

Then imagine that a community works to revive use of that script (now 
known as Baybayin) and extends character use in it based on similar 
characters in related, more contemporaneous scripts, but that the first 
time the UTC actually formally hears about that extension is on July 18, 
2019:

https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19258r-baybayin-ra.pdf

And then imagine that despite a 17 year gap before this supposedly 
urgent defect in an encoding is reported to the UTC, that the UTC in 
fact approves encoding of U+170D TAGALOG LETTER RA at its very *first* 
opportunity, eight days later, on July 26, 2019. Further imagine that 
the UTC immediately publishes what amounts to a "letter of intent" to 
publish this character when it can:

https://www.unicode.org/alloc/Pipeline.html#future

It may then be understandable that some UTC participants might be 
puzzled to be accused of unconscionable delays in this case.

I understand the frustration that you are expressing, but it simply 
isn't feasible for every proposal's advocates to get their particular 
candidates pushed to the front of the line for publication. Unicode 13.0 
is creaking down the track towards its March 10, 2020 publication, but 
it already is contending with 5930 new characters (as well as additional 
emoji sequences beyond that), every one of which was approved by the UTC 
*prior* to July 26, 2019 and all of which are already in some advanced 
stage of ISO ballot consideration.

In the meantime, Baybayin users are inconvenienced, sure, but it is 
unlikely that the interim solutions will just break, because nobody is 
opposed to U+170D TAGALOG LETTER RA, and it is exceedingly unlikely that 
that code point would be moved before its eventual publication in the 
standard in March, 2021.

--Ken