Re: Armenian numbering: findings, recommendations and request to CSS

Robert J Burns 2009-02-14 00.25:
> Hi Leif and fantasai,

> So that means all CSS needs to do is limit the specific letters used in 
> an alphabetic (or more precisely in Unicode terms a lettered) 
> enumeration. Unicode provides the rest.   However as Leif suggested before
> some general naming scheme might be needed to allow some way to express 
> this in a functional form as fantasai suggested (something to serve as 
> the argument/arguments for an "alpha" or "lettered" function). So for 
> example lettered(latn-no) or alpha(latn-no) could indicate the Latin 
> script limited to Norwegian letters and sorted according to the Unicode 
> Norwegian collation. 

Sounds fine with me with alpha(latn-no). But I don't know if 
upper-case/lower-case fits in in such a system.

> The same thing could be accomplished for any 
> Ethiopic based langauge (unless there's something else I'm missing there).

If there is one thing that should be relatively easy to document 
and agree about, then it is about alphabetical collation. 
Especially so if such collation is documented in Unicode - I am 
not familiar with that subject.

> The interesting part I guess would be to see what languages fell outside 
> this abstraction and needed further tailoring or its own approach. 
> However, lettered enumerations seem fundamentally different than the 
> Roman numeral system (and it sound like also the Armenian numeral 
> system), but I imagine that both Armenian (as for Latin) would  enjoy 
> also lettered enumerations. Perhaps I"m the only one confusing that 
> here, but I'm having trouble following then.

In a summary, we are juggling with 4 things:

 Alphabet: The particualr alphabet in question
 A: classic systems (Roman, Armenian, classical Greek, classical 
Church slavonic, Georgian) based on letters in place of numbers.
 B: alphabetical collation
 C: hybrids: saying a, b, c instead of 1, 2, 3

In many cases B and C are identical.  E.g. we could classify 
"upper-norwegian" as both B and C. And some times even A and B may 
also overlap. E.g. classical Armenian, for the 10 first letters.

For some latin alphabets, however, C and B differs, because C 
constitutes a list which is either larger or shorter than B. E.g. 
if someone uses the A-Z list for C, even if their own alphabet is 
shorter than that, then they are using A-Z purely as a counting 
system - without any regard to the letters in their own language.

E.g for the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, C constitutes as shorter 
version of that alphabet, than B does. {And B), in turn, 
constitutes as shorter version of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet.}
-- 
leif halvard silli

Received on Saturday, 14 February 2009 21:48:30 UTC