HEBREW HE-WITH-ADNY-INSIDE

[Simon Montagu]

Is there any use case for this glyph except as the last letter of the 
Tetragrammaton? Does it make sense to encode it separately rather than 
the whole combination HEBREW TETRAGRAMMATON WITH ADNY INSIDE THE HE?

On 18/04/2024 04:20, Mark E. Shoulson via Unicode wrote:
> Wow, not a peep about this?  Surely a group this opinionated would have 
> something to say.  I guess I should propose this, since it's in use? 
> Probably would have a compatibility equivalence to just plain HEBREW 
> LETTER HE.
> 
> ~mark
> 
> On 4/1/24 17:39, Mark E. Shoulson via Unicode wrote:
>> Looking waaaay back to my opus (with Michael Everson) of 1998, 
>> http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n1740/n1740.htm, I call to 
>> attention one particular case mentioned there: the case where the 
>> second HEBREW LETTER HE of the Tetragrammaton is made very wide and 
>> another Holy Name (Adonay, ALEF-DALET-NUN-YOD) is printed in smaller 
>> letters inside it.  As mentioned last century, this is even now (well, 
>> then) commonly met with, especially in Sephardic prayer books.
>>
>> I mention it because I've found a bunch of professional Hebrew fonts 
>> which have a glyph for this special character.  Take a look at any one 
>> of many (but not all) of the offerings of the Samtype Foundry at 
>> https://www.myfonts.com/collections/samtype-foundry and you'll see 
>> what I mean.  Sometimes it's visible in the sample image, sometimes it 
>> isn't even though it's in the font.  They seem to be placing the glyph 
>> at codepoint U+FB50, which is ARABIC LETTER ALEF WASLA ISOLATED FORM, 
>> probably because it's the next character after the extended Hebrew 
>> code-block that ends at U+FB4F HEBREW LIGATURE ALEF LAMED and because, 
>> being in an Arabic codeblock, it has RTL directionality (while the PUA 
>> I think has LTR directionality, which is most inconvenient.)
>>
>> So it seems that this really is a thing being used by typefounders 
>> even now.  Probably should be encoded, yes?  My rationale from 1998 of 
>> encoding the Tetragrammaton as a glyph in itself was apparently not 
>> accepted, though after a later paper, 
>> https://unicode.org/L2/L2015/15092-hebew-nomina-sacra.pdf and some 
>> discussion, the YOD TRIANGLE U+05EF was encoded.  Perhaps this should 
>> be too?  I guess as a variant of HE perhaps?  (the name in the 
>> subject-header is not meant as a serious proposal for the glyph-name, 
>> though this letter is actually serious, despite the date.)
>>
>> ~mark
>