Re: Unicode support

["Rafal T. Prinke" <rafalp@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Gabriel Landini wrote:
> 
> On 7 Jan 2001, at 8:30, Jacques Guy wrote:
> > Alissa Mower clough wrote:
> > >
> > > Hey, if the Shavians and Tolkien freaks can have their page in UNICODE,
> > > why not us?
> 
> This was brought up before. Still I would prefer that the wait until
> we're sure that the weirdoes and the locations do not change
> anymore.

It is not quite true about Tolkienian characters. The Tengwar and Cirth
scripts are not part of the Unicode standard but are included in
the ConScript Unicode Registry which is a volunteer project for
mapping artificial scripts to the basic multilingual plane (BMP)
in the Private Use Area. That area will never be used by Unicode
and has 6,400 "empty" points for private or group use.

http://www.ccil.org/~cowan/csur/naming.html

As the ConScript lists mostly modern artificial languages,
it may be dangerous to include Voynich script because we may
find out in the future that there is a conflict with other
uses of the Private Use Area - such as the Junicode Project
which maps medieval Latin special characters (ligatures etc.)
to the same area and may be needed for the future VMS research
documentation.

http://www.engl.virginia.edu/OE/junicode/junicode.html

The basic (zero) plane of Unicode is now full and Voynich
script will certainly not be accepted there. Plane-1 is now
partly also filled with (or rather reserved for) ancient and
archaic scripts (including Rongorongo, Egyptian hieroglyphics etc.).

A formal proposal for including the Voynich script in
the Unicode standard can be done through:

http://www.unicode.org/pending/proposals.html

but I do not think it will be accepted in any sensible
time (if at all).

Best regards,

Rafal