- From: John Hudson <tiro@tiro.com>
- Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 11:29:03 -0700
- CC: fantasai <fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net>, www-style@w3.org
What is the functional purpose of the script classification system? If it is to be used primarily in line-breaking and justification behaviour, perhaps it would make more sense to explicitly refer to this section as something like 'Line-break Categorisation' and to label the categories with regard to line-break and justification models, rather than by trying to label scripts by type and then presume a line-breaking model for each type. As it stands, the proposed classification criteria seems confused and to be based on an idiosyncratic analysis that ends up forcing closely related writing systems into different categories; there may be good reason for these divisions based on line-breaking needs, but for anyone familiar with more typical script analysis the use of familiar terms in strange ways is confusing, as are the implied groupings. For instance, under the categorisation criteria, Devanagari and Bengali would be considered 'connected scripts', while Gujarati and Oriya would be 'discrete scripts', despite that fact that all four scripts are closely related, have historically been analysed as local variants of the same writing system, and share important features that are ignored by the proposed classification criteria. The term cursive is problematic because virtually any writing system can and has been written in a cursive form, even nominal 'block scripts'. There are plentiful examples of cursive Latin script, and in many instances these are analysable as being at the same time cursive and discrete, since the letters within words retain their discrete isolated shapes are are linked by joining strokes that are not part of the letter. This in contrast to Arabic, in which the joining strokes are part of the letters, replacing other strokes that occur in the isolated forms. So the distinction between Latin and Arabic is that the latter is morphographical, while both may be written in cursive styles. [This also raises the issue of the degree to which nominal script-level decisions about line-breaking and justification can be safely applied to particular styles and particular fonts. If a justification model permits inter-character spacing adjustment of 'discrete' scripts, what is the effect on cursive font styles?] Wouldn't it be better to define a set of line-breaking and justification model categories, and then populate these with the scripts to which each should be applied? JH
Received on Friday, 15 April 2011 18:29:40 UTC