Why do the Hebrew Alphabetic Presentation Forms Exist

[jk at koremail.com]

On 2020-06-09 20:29, Mark E. Shoulson via Unicode wrote:
> On 6/8/20 10:57 PM, Asmus Freytag via Unicode wrote:
> 
>> On 6/8/2020 2:02 PM, Mark E. Shoulson via Unicode wrote:
>> 
>>> Down to one sentence: until you can talk about which LAMEDs in the
>>> Torah are bent and which are straight, I would expect this to be a
>>> non-starter.
>> 
>> The meta issue: how to ensure that texts that have such features
>> (i.e. layout-specific or scribe-specific choice of shapes) can be
>> widely represented in interchangeable digital representations - even
>> if that representation isn't plain text.
>> 
>> A./
> 
> I guess that's what it comes down to.  Unicode is classically
> concerned only with plain text.  Aside from disputes about where
> "plain text" ends, what's to be done with "non-plain" text?  Some
> aspects of this non-plain text, like these scribal choices, obviously
> feels more connected to the abstract text than others, like page
> layout.  Are these part of Unicode's mission?  Should they be?  If
> not, then what?  You *can* represent and reproduce these details by
> kludges, be they as ham-fisted as having two fonts with different
> LAMEDs and formatting some in one font and some in another.  Is that
> good enough?  Does it mess up other things?  And even if it is good
> enough, does that count as an "interchangeable digital
> representation," that I can send a .odt file around?  Things to
> ponder.
> 

Unicode is concerned with information exchange, as you say 
"interchangeable digital representation" of which to common examples are 
emails and text messages. So an ~.odt file does not count.

John

> ~mark