RE: Maltese fonts and Maltese characters

In Maltese dictionaries, the g/barred-h combination is listed as a separate
character. However, I don't see why it would need to be encoded separately. The
'g' and 'barred-h' each represent other characters when not appearing in a
digraph.   Typically, similar digraphs in other languages are encoded as the
sequence of their component characters. Since that holds true for many other
languages, I can't see why it should be different for Maltese. 

Kamal Mansour
Monotype Typography
_______________________________________________________________________________
From: tiro@tiro.com on Wed 4 Feb 1998 14:51
Subject: Re: Maltese fonts and Maltese characters
To: www-font@w3.org



The Maltese characters Clyde Meli to which refers are included in Unicode
Latin Extended-A. Their Unicode identities are:

U+010A Latin capital letter C with dot above
U+010B Latin small letter C with dot above

U+0120 Latin capital letter G with dot above
U+0121 Latin small letter G with dot above

U+0126 Latin capital letter H with stroke
U+0127 Latin small letter H with stroke

Also included is the dotted Z, which I believe is also necessary for Maltese.

U+017B Latin capital letter Z with dot above
U+017C Latin small letter Z with dot above

I would be very interested to know if you anyone think of a reason why the
g/barred-h combination should exist as a separate character for encoding
purposes. My understanding is that this digraph affects the pronunciation of
a subsequent i or u, producing specific diphthong sounds. Is there any
reason why this digraph should not always consist of the two separate
characters? Is this digraph sorted separately in dictionaries, for example?

John Hudson, Type Director

Tiro Typeworks
Vancouver, BC
www.tiro.com
tiro@tiro.com

Received on Thursday, 5 February 1998 16:24:54 UTC