It really depends on the language, and it's not totally about the glyphs. Text entry is a huge challenge for languages like Mandarin where glyphs can have multi

It really depends on the language, and it's not totally about the glyphs. Text entry is a huge challenge for languages like Mandarin where glyphs can have multiple pronunciations and meanings depending on context. Consider that Mandarin (which shares many, but not all glyphs with Japanese kanji) has upwards of 20,000 different glyphs, and that other languages have a similar level of complexity, and it becomes hard to find an encoding standard capable of handling all of that complexity and variance. What constitutes a "glyph" isn't even consistent - in some languages a glyph is a syllable, in some (like English) it's less than a syllable, and in yet others a single glyph can be an entire word. In a language like Japanese, multiple glyphs are often combined to create new composite glyphs with different meanings. For example, the word for "forest" is a glyph comprised of 3 "tree" glyphs, but has an unrelated pronunciation. How do you handle text entry between these differences? It may seem like a pedantic question, but it makes sense to define the characters in the way they will be written, or else the text entry scheme will be so complex you'll need an interpreter to convert from some entry scheme into the Unicode format. I think this is the problem the Unicode Consortium is grappling with - and it's not an easy problem. I don't claim to have the answers here; but I do recognize the complexity.