[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Re: A character is in the eye of the beholder

Jonathan Rosenne writes:

> Martin Bryan wrote:
> > When SC18/WG8 looked into sorting for ISO/IEC 10179 we came across a number
> > of problems that prevented us from adopting a common algorithm ...
> 
> > If SC22/WG20 can come up with an ordering that can be accepted by all
> > dictionary producers as an internationally agreed standard I can assure you
> > that SC18/WG8 will be only too glad to adopt it, but at present our
> > community, the publishing world, cannot agree on a standardized ordering of
> > accented characters
> 
> I would like to add another problem preventing a useful international
> standard on ordering: For a multilingual document which has Hebrew as
> it's base language, the ordering of the index would have Hebrew
> preceding other scripts. I suppose the parallel would apply to a
> document which has Greek or Arabic as base language. The proposed
> standard has the Latin script first, which may well be fine for a CEN or
> ANSI standard, but I don't think it is apropriate for an ISO standard.

Yes, the order of the scripts are a recognized problem, that we have
addressed in 14651 and 14652 with a capability to reorder the 
scripts. For Hebrew, with the requirements stated, there is a need
to have a Hebrew sorting specification with the Hebrew script
first. This can be easily constructed from IS 14651.

Keld