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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'>Some day in the future, this thread and other similar threads are going to be compared with the current discussions in the scientific community and the medical community that are now recognizing that only theories and rationales supported by insiders or considered “standard science”are being brought forward, and worthy research has been suppressed, delayed and dismissed, only to be found to be true years and decades later.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='margin-bottom:6.0pt;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>1)<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'>In today’s heavily technological world, both demand and innovation are only comparable when there is equivalent access to technology. Demand and innovation are both suppressed when technology is not available. So Klingon is at an unfair disadvantage. (As are many indigenous languages.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='margin-bottom:6.0pt;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>2)<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'>The arguments catering to emoji as a separate entity are quite unfair. Emoji could be subdivided into classes just as most other scripts are treated as distinctive even when they are derivative, and then demand is looked at separately. Arguing that the tail is always small, when instead there are entire categories of emoji that could be described as having less usefulness than Klingon is preposterous. (In fact, I would argue that the abundance of similar looking emoji, makes it hard to recognize their intended distinctive meanings, diluting their usefulness altogether. I need a magnifying glass and a dictionary to make sure the emoji I select is roughly what I intend to say.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='margin-bottom:6.0pt;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>3)<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'>Emoji is in a different class as well because there is a committee within Unicode which acts both to administer (or regulate). Having such a committee spurs innovation and demand. Imagine if there was an “invented” scripts committee… We would then have much more (both legitimate and unwarranted) activity.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoListParagraph style='margin-bottom:6.0pt;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1'><![if !supportLists]><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'><span style='mso-list:Ignore'>4)<span style='font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"'> </span></span></span><![endif]><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'>There are 50+ years of interest in Klingon. At this point, the lack of technological support if anything has acted to suppress demand and interest (unsuccessfully). Hard to say how much activity there would be if Klingon had been supported for several years now.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'>=================<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'>Perhaps the more important aspect of all of this, is how much harm is done when a language with sufficient interest (I have in mind indigenous languages more than Klingon) is overly scrutinized and takes years to be incorporated into the standard and more years to be incorporated into major platforms to become usable. The difficulty for indigenous communities who risk losing their culture and history is significant.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'>I understand the difficulty of defining all the properties and the associated algorithm support for new scripts. However, I wonder if there isn’t a process that could be adopted where characters are allocated to Unicode and rudimentary glyphs defined, in a category of preliminary. This would speed incorporation into technologies. The text could then be used in primitive or experimental ways by the interested communities, with further standardization of properties etc. coming with further study.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'>I am not suggesting all proposals be adopted this way, just those with sufficient interest but perhaps insufficient documentation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'>This would at the least help indigenous communities preserve text and even allow the communities to assist in the definition of properties for further standardization, as they work with and understand how the text needs to operate to meet their intent.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'>And the same is true for languages like Klingon.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'>(I tried really hard not to respond to this thread, but I finally couldn’t. And I will try to not debate the above. Ducking and running)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><a name="_MailEndCompose"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#002060'><o:p> </o:p></span></a></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> Unicode [mailto:unicode-bounces@corp.unicode.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Mark E. Shoulson via Unicode<br><b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, September 15, 2021 2:00 PM<br><b>To:</b> unicode@corp.unicode.org<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: Difference between Klingon and Tengwar<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"-moz-fixed","serif"'>On 9/15/21 4:47 PM, Asmus Freytag via Unicode wrote: <br><br><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"-moz-fixed","serif";color:#007CFF'><br>It's a writing system that has global reach (even if not "high-brow") and is actively, you could even say enthusiastically, supported by systems/font vendors (and users). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"-moz-fixed","serif"'>I was telling someone once about Unicode: it's the standard for representing letters of all alphabets, etc, they're the ones who officially encode emoji, etc. The response was surprise: "Why encode emoji? Who uses those?" "Um... millions of people, every day, in tweets and stuff?" "Yeah, but apart from that?" Well, yeah, apart from the people who use them, nobody uses them. But that's true of English letters too. Just that emoji usage wasn't "high-brow" enough for this listener, apparently. <br><br><br><br><o:p></o:p></span></p><blockquote style='margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"-moz-fixed","serif";color:#007CFF'>It's more like encoding a brand-new character in the IPA that hasn't seen use yet, but we know people use the IPA and so this letter will be used. (I know, the parallel isn't perfect: an IPA character would have been approved by the IPA, etc. Try to see the forest for the trees.) <o:p></o:p></span></p></blockquote><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"-moz-fixed","serif";color:#007CFF'><br>When it comes to new items, mathematical symbols may be more similar. Because of existing, parallel technologies, like TeX, it's possible for that notation to innovate in advance of standardizing by Unicode. However, de-facto, the collection is unbounded and actively being added to. Not all fields of mathematics will ever expand with equal popularity; so there's a similar issue with additions not equally guaranteed to be of the same importance/ popularity/longevity. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"-moz-fixed","serif"'>Yeah, that's a good example, though math symbols also have to show usage before being encoded. They have better mechanisms for avoiding the chicken-and-egg problem. <br><br><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"-moz-fixed","serif";color:#007CFF'><br>When it comes to immediate support, currency symbols come to mind. They form an unbounded set of their own, with active innovation happening, but users not really having a choice whether or not to use a new symbol (the only thing is that the currency could fail and all usage to become historical). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"-moz-fixed","serif"'>This is probably a better example: there is built-in demand that we know is there, and it's adding a symbol to an "alphabet" that's already supported. <br><br><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"-moz-fixed","serif";color:#007CFF'><br><br><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"-moz-fixed","serif";color:#007CFF'>So, yeah, emoji are weird, but I don't think they can be generalized. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"-moz-fixed","serif";color:#007CFF'><br>They fit the intersection between pictographic writing systems with unbounded collection and writing systems (symbol collections) with active innovation. <br><br>To the extent that no other system shows just that combination of trends you can't derive any parallels; on the other hand, they have a define place in any Venn diagram of writing systems. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><span style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"-moz-fixed","serif"'>Yes. By "generalized" I meant you can't generalize Unicode's treatment of them to other situations. I think we're saying the same thing. <br><br><br>~mark <o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></body></html>