4 ms·

So Unicode has all these mysterious characters... but I would bet that it's still true that many people on the planet speaking common languages can't even type

So Unicode has all these mysterious characters... but I would bet that it's still true that many people on the planet speaking common languages can't even type their name... This post is from 2015, and I'd love to know if unicode has added better support for non-English languages since then. https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/i-can-text-you-a-pile-of-poo-but-i-cant-write-my-name https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/i-can-text-you-a-pile-of... Based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_(Unicode_block) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_(Unicode_block), only 3 more Bengali characters have been added since 2015.

giraffe_lady 5y ago
That publication was so good, I was really bummed when they shut down. Looks like they came back for a minute in 2020? I had no idea but I know what I'm doing tonight.
nograpes 5y ago
I was very surprised by your comment and by the article you linked that the name Aditya cannot be represented in Unicode. I think it can be represented: আদিত্য. I am not a Bengali-speaker, but I am familiar with the class of scripts to which the Bengali script belongs, abugidas. These scripts assume a vowel following every consonant. When two consonants occur one after the other in a word (a consonant cluster), this must be represented specially, because if you just wrote (consonant, consonant) it would be pronounced (consonant, inherent vowel, consonant). The "ty" in Aditya is one such consonant cluster. The way this cluster is written is ত্য. This is represented as three code points (I think I am messing up the proper terms), one for the "t", one to "join", and one for "y". Some people think of the special shape that the final "y" as a separate character on its own. In fact, it has it's own name (ya-phalā). I can understand why it would be confusing to see that the ya-phalā can't be typed as its own single character (" ্য"), but it really has to do with a difference in how the input is is implemented and how the person thinks about their own language. In fact, on the unicode.org site, typing this very character is part of the FAQ for Bengali: https://unicode.org/faq/bengali.html#6 https://unicode.org/faq/bengali.html#6
- andlarry 5y ago
  There was a lot of discussion [0] of that point when the Model View Culture article was originally posted 7 years ago. It's complicated, but the author of the piece seems to take issue with how the character set was designed by the language authorities the UTC delegated to. The whole comment thread is an interesting read. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220147
goto11 5y ago
The article present it like it purely due to western-centrism these characters does not have distinct code points in Unicode. In reality the issue is much more subtle - a discussion whether a certain glyph is a ligature of two characters or its own distinct character.
kens 5y ago
I read that "I Can’t Write My Name" article when it came out and it's remarkably misguided. First, there are solid linguistic reasons why Unicode handles that character the way it does. Second, the article completely misunderstands how the Unicode Consortium works. Finally, the Unicode Consortium is remarkably open to character proposals from random people. The author could have written a proposal and fixed the problem in half the time it took to write the article. Source: I am a random person who got multiple characters added to Unicode.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- yesenadam 4y ago
  > I am a random person who got multiple characters added to Unicode. Tell us that story please!

giraffe_lady 5y ago

That publication was so good, I was really bummed when they shut down. Looks like they came back for a minute in 2020? I had no idea but I know what I'm doing tonight.

nograpes 5y ago

I was very surprised by your comment and by the article you linked that the name Aditya cannot be represented in Unicode. I think it can be represented: আদিত্য. I am not a Bengali-speaker, but I am familiar with the class of scripts to which the Bengali script belongs, abugidas. These scripts assume a vowel following every consonant. When two consonants occur one after the other in a word (a consonant cluster), this must be represented specially, because if you just wrote (consonant, consonant) it would be pronounced (consonant, inherent vowel, consonant). The "ty" in Aditya is one such consonant cluster. The way this cluster is written is ত্য. This is represented as three code points (I think I am messing up the proper terms), one for the "t", one to "join", and one for "y". Some people think of the special shape that the final "y" as a separate character on its own. In fact, it has it's own name (ya-phalā). I can understand why it would be confusing to see that the ya-phalā can't be typed as its own single character (" ্য"), but it really has to do with a difference in how the input is is implemented and how the person thinks about their own language. In fact, on the unicode.org site, typing this very character is part of the FAQ for Bengali: https://unicode.org/faq/bengali.html#6 https://unicode.org/faq/bengali.html#6

andlarry 5y ago
There was a lot of discussion [0] of that point when the Model View Culture article was originally posted 7 years ago. It's complicated, but the author of the piece seems to take issue with how the character set was designed by the language authorities the UTC delegated to. The whole comment thread is an interesting read. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9220147

goto11 5y ago

The article present it like it purely due to western-centrism these characters does not have distinct code points in Unicode. In reality the issue is much more subtle - a discussion whether a certain glyph is a ligature of two characters or its own distinct character.

kens 5y ago

I read that "I Can’t Write My Name" article when it came out and it's remarkably misguided. First, there are solid linguistic reasons why Unicode handles that character the way it does. Second, the article completely misunderstands how the Unicode Consortium works. Finally, the Unicode Consortium is remarkably open to character proposals from random people. The author could have written a proposal and fixed the problem in half the time it took to write the article. Source: I am a random person who got multiple characters added to Unicode.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
yesenadam 4y ago
> I am a random person who got multiple characters added to Unicode. Tell us that story please!