Re: Phonetics

On 3/29/07, John Vertical <johnvertical@...> wrote:
> >The concept originated with a graphical realization, but yes, it
> >continues to exist even where there isn't one. I can say that a
> >text file on disk contains an a-with-macron, without bothering
> >to do anything to render that character as a glyph.
>
> But that is just encoding then, not handwawy "abstract" caracters. :)
Not at all.  An a with a macron may exist in that text file in any
number of different encodings.  Unicode a-with-macron or a followed by
combining macron; encoded in UTF-7, UTF-8, UTF-9, UTF-EBCDIC,
UTF-16LE, UTF-16BE, UTF-32LE, UTF-32BE, SCSU, BOCU-1... that's a whole
lot of completely different sets of bits, but they all represent "the
same character".  Sure, it's still "data", but it's above the level
where "data" is "just bits"; it's a question of what those bits mean.
Which is an answerable question without picking a font and rendering
some glyphs.

> >A Latin textbook in Braille is arguably chock full of a's-with-macrons
> >that bear no resemblance to the usual glyph (...)
> Um, this sounds like you're falling into the "language as primarily written"
> trap. Lots of transcriptions of /a:/ for sure, possibly even with special
> Braille diacritics, but absolutely NO macrons unless you mean an actual
> embossed macron atop the dots.
Ok, bad example.  Pick a different character/language, then.  Spanish
a with acute, say, which has its own Braille representation (an extra
dot, IIRC).

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>