text-emphasis UTR [I18N-ACTION-125]

Some months ago (in June) I wrote to unicoRe and various folks about the problem of documenting which characters should be skipped in text emphasis regimes (such as Japanese bouten). The CSS Working Group maintains a list currently. It was suggested at the time that they could continue to do so. However, the general feeling between W3C-I18N and CSS is that this isn’t just a Web concern. Contributing this work (and other similar work) to Unicode might be a better way to “home” the information where it will benefit all implementers of text formatting.

 

This past week was W3C’s TPAC meeting, our annual get-together of diverse working groups. I18N and CSS discussed this issue during the week and I was actioned to write this email. Based on the previous conversation, CSS contributors would be willing to contribute a new UTR dealing with text-emphasis (and the skipping property), provided that Unicode’s processes are such that sufficient time and notification exists to allow reasonable maintenance going forwards. I think, given the cadence of Unicode releases and public review periods associated with same, that this might be trivial.

 

I also note that there’s a thread running currently about “how to write a new UTR”.

 

This is not urgent, but we would like to start figuring out whether this work (vs. mere maintenance in the CSS space) would be welcomed by Unicode and how to approach developing the document. What’s the next step? A proposal for the UTC?

 

[1] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-i18n-core/2024AprJun/0055.html#replies

 

Addison Phillips

Chair (W3C Internationalization WG)

 

Internationalization is not a feature.

It is an architecture.