3 ms·

Everyone buy Klingons.

WorldMaker 11y ago
Indeed. Now that the Astral Plane has opened up, I think it is past time for Unicode to reconsider its decision on conlang alphabets and include things like Klingon, Tengwar, Aurebesh, and similar. I suppose coming up with criteria for conlang alphabet significance might be complicated, but certainly similar scholarship qualifications might be used as some of the dead languages.
- kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
  They certainly have no criteria for emoji significance. Some Japanese handheld has an obscure character? Put it in the next standard for all to puzzle over.
  - WorldMaker 11y ago
    The Japanese "import" was a one-time occurrence and a standardization and unification of existing defacto "standards". It's not terribly different from the much earlier import of Wingdings into Unicode. Moving forward new emoji have to follow proposal tracks like anything else and "some Japanese handhelds" have no more pull than anyone else; in fact at this point it seems like the intersection of Microsoft, Apple, and Google seem to have the most skin in the game in making proposals and verifying them and the three tech companies may be biased in there own ways but obscurity is not one of them.
  - derefr 11y ago
    You mean these ones? 🈶 🈚️ 🈸 🈺 🈷️ 🈴 🈵 🈲 Their names in the standard are kind of annoying, but actually helpful: "Squared CJK Unified ideograph NNNN", where NNNN turns out to be the hex code for the equivalent not-in-a-square character. Now, I've taken courses in Japanese and Chinese, but you don't usually use characters on their own like this to mean things; so I would guess the following: • "🈶" is meant to be used as an emblem/badge to mark items you already own, and "🈚️" ones you don't; • "🈸" can mean "to offer", perhaps used beside e.g. bid prices on stocks—or could just mean "to report", as in a button to view the status of something; • "🈺" seems to mean "to manage"—as in a button to modify the properties of something; • "🈷️" just means "month" (or "moon", but probably not in this case), and so it likely meant to be used as a button to open a time-picker to modify the date of something; • "🈴" seems to mean "to close" or "to pass" (as on a test); I assume it could be used similarly to a "Done" or maybe "Apply" button on a property sheet, or to the "Submit" button on a form; • "🈵" means "enough", in the sense of being satisfied; I guess this could be used for an "OK" button, or a back/up/out button when looking "inside" something. • "🈲" means "to prohibit" or "to restrict", but also "to endure"; I would guess it would be used for a "Cancel" button. I have a feeling these characters aren't used much now even on modern Japanese mobile devices; they're likely a legacy of the early Japanese mobile web and apps. If anyone here knows better...?
    - rakoo 11y ago
      It is only now, after years of dealing with stuff that is not ASCII (I'm not american), that I realize the icons actually have the unicode codepoint in them. Thank you very much for making me see it.
      - derefr 11y ago
        Do you mean that they're boxes containing the hex digits of their respective Unicode codepoints? I think that's actually what happens on Windows when you don't have an emoji font installed. They should render on most desktop OSes like this: http://i.imgur.com/lFQoaQe.png http://i.imgur.com/lFQoaQe.png Or, on on mobile OSes, more like this: http://i.imgur.com/M3U6Ikl.png http://i.imgur.com/M3U6Ikl.png
- vardump 11y ago
  Nitpicking. Unicode is a blessing. Life before it was endless encoding hell. Who cares about a few smileys. I don't mean it doesn't deserve criticism. Just don't think a few code point allocations matter, especially ones that people actively use. Emojis are probably some of the most popular astral plane code points. Edit: meant to reply kevin_thibedeau. Not deleting it because of the reply.
  - WorldMaker 11y ago
    Oh, I personally am absolutely pro-emoji! It's very much a useful allocation of the astral plane and great to see standardized. I'm just saying that prior to Unicode 6.0 and the addition of the Astral Plane conlangs (constructed languages, ie the fun things created by fantasy and science fiction authors and fans and world builders) were rejected as "out of scope" for Unicode and so far as I know that rejection hasn't been reconsidered since the Astral Plane reopened. They would fit well in a block of their own not far from the emoji sectors. The interesting part here too is that the interests of adding these character sets is closer to the academic world of dead languages than the commercial interests of the tech world and emoji.

Indeed. Now that the Astral Plane has opened up, I think it is past time for Unicode to reconsider its decision on conlang alphabets and include things like Klingon, Tengwar, Aurebesh, and similar. I suppose coming up with criteria for conlang alphabet significance might be complicated, but certainly similar scholarship qualifications might be used as some of the dead languages.

kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
They certainly have no criteria for emoji significance. Some Japanese handheld has an obscure character? Put it in the next standard for all to puzzle over.
- WorldMaker 11y ago
  The Japanese "import" was a one-time occurrence and a standardization and unification of existing defacto "standards". It's not terribly different from the much earlier import of Wingdings into Unicode. Moving forward new emoji have to follow proposal tracks like anything else and "some Japanese handhelds" have no more pull than anyone else; in fact at this point it seems like the intersection of Microsoft, Apple, and Google seem to have the most skin in the game in making proposals and verifying them and the three tech companies may be biased in there own ways but obscurity is not one of them.
- derefr 11y ago
  You mean these ones? 🈶 🈚️ 🈸 🈺 🈷️ 🈴 🈵 🈲 Their names in the standard are kind of annoying, but actually helpful: "Squared CJK Unified ideograph NNNN", where NNNN turns out to be the hex code for the equivalent not-in-a-square character. Now, I've taken courses in Japanese and Chinese, but you don't usually use characters on their own like this to mean things; so I would guess the following: • "🈶" is meant to be used as an emblem/badge to mark items you already own, and "🈚️" ones you don't; • "🈸" can mean "to offer", perhaps used beside e.g. bid prices on stocks—or could just mean "to report", as in a button to view the status of something; • "🈺" seems to mean "to manage"—as in a button to modify the properties of something; • "🈷️" just means "month" (or "moon", but probably not in this case), and so it likely meant to be used as a button to open a time-picker to modify the date of something; • "🈴" seems to mean "to close" or "to pass" (as on a test); I assume it could be used similarly to a "Done" or maybe "Apply" button on a property sheet, or to the "Submit" button on a form; • "🈵" means "enough", in the sense of being satisfied; I guess this could be used for an "OK" button, or a back/up/out button when looking "inside" something. • "🈲" means "to prohibit" or "to restrict", but also "to endure"; I would guess it would be used for a "Cancel" button. I have a feeling these characters aren't used much now even on modern Japanese mobile devices; they're likely a legacy of the early Japanese mobile web and apps. If anyone here knows better...?
  - rakoo 11y ago
    It is only now, after years of dealing with stuff that is not ASCII (I'm not american), that I realize the icons actually have the unicode codepoint in them. Thank you very much for making me see it.
    - derefr 11y ago
      Do you mean that they're boxes containing the hex digits of their respective Unicode codepoints? I think that's actually what happens on Windows when you don't have an emoji font installed. They should render on most desktop OSes like this: http://i.imgur.com/lFQoaQe.png http://i.imgur.com/lFQoaQe.png Or, on on mobile OSes, more like this: http://i.imgur.com/M3U6Ikl.png http://i.imgur.com/M3U6Ikl.png
vardump 11y ago
Nitpicking. Unicode is a blessing. Life before it was endless encoding hell. Who cares about a few smileys. I don't mean it doesn't deserve criticism. Just don't think a few code point allocations matter, especially ones that people actively use. Emojis are probably some of the most popular astral plane code points. Edit: meant to reply kevin_thibedeau. Not deleting it because of the reply.
- WorldMaker 11y ago
  Oh, I personally am absolutely pro-emoji! It's very much a useful allocation of the astral plane and great to see standardized. I'm just saying that prior to Unicode 6.0 and the addition of the Astral Plane conlangs (constructed languages, ie the fun things created by fantasy and science fiction authors and fans and world builders) were rejected as "out of scope" for Unicode and so far as I know that rejection hasn't been reconsidered since the Astral Plane reopened. They would fit well in a block of their own not far from the emoji sectors. The interesting part here too is that the interests of adding these character sets is closer to the academic world of dead languages than the commercial interests of the tech world and emoji.