Draft proposal: Old Polish nasal vowel letter

[Asmus Freytag]

On 1/9/2021 3:30 PM, Richard Wordingham via Unicode wrote:
> On Sat, 9 Jan 2021 14:14:42 -0800
> Asmus Freytag via Unicode <unicode at unicode.org> wrote:
>
>>> Finally, the letter should be encoded as precomposed only, to avoid
>>> the issues we've had for other characters where the "nominal"
>>> diacritic indicated in the decomposition would force a shape that's
>>> not compatible with the range of allographs.
>>>   
>> PS: some of the allographs for the diacritic strike me as something
>> other than
>> an "over-strike". The attached two sections or the partial vertical
>> over-strike
>> of the top  of the bowl only would normally not be decomposed,
>> because they are more like an "attached" diacritic than an overlay.
>> This further argues for not decomposing this character.
> This is very like the slash in the dollar sign, which may likewise
> be reduced to projections above and below.  I don't think there is any
> doubt that this Polish character should be encoded as an indecomposable
> character; the question is whether it has already been encoded.
>
It is very much unlike the case for $. For that letter, as originally 
encoded
everywhere, there are a number of accepted allographs. The encoding
covers all of them. (And none are decomposable).

The Polish letter has a range of allographs that include shapes used
for other letters. Those letters do not have any such allographs. (And
some of the allographs shown in the proposal match different letters
that are well distinct from each other as encoded today).

In my reading, the range for a letter's allographs can (and should) be
one of the factors that determines its identity. Part of that evaluation
needs to also focus on what is the most common (modern) allograph.

In the current instance I see nothing that would support a unification
to an existing character, unless Unicode were to resurrect the discredited
concept of "arms-length unification", or unification based on superficial
similarities.

A./

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