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

[Richard Wordingham via Unicode]

On Sat, 12 Oct 2019 18:15:38 +0800
Fred Brennan via Unicode <unicode at unicode.org> wrote:

> Indeed - it is extremely unfortunate that users will need to wait
> until 2021(!) to get it into Unicode so Google will finally add it to
> the Noto fonts.

> 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?

Update me on what the problem with using the character *now* is.  If the
character is so important, why do you need to wait for Noto fonts?

I can imagine a much bigger problem - you could have the problem that
the Babayin script is 'supported'.  This could result in dotted circles
between RA and the combining marks.  It took ages between the addition
of U+0BB6 TAMI LETTER SHA to Unicode and obtaining a renderer that
acknowledged it as a Tamil letter.  You should be (or are you?)
badgering HarfBuzz to speculatively support it.  (There may be other
problems in the system.)

> Imagine if the letter "Q" was unencoded and Noto refused to
> add it for two more years?

On private PCs, having Noto support for a script can actually be an
unmitigated disaster.

Richard.