Re: [DejaVu-fonts] [Eng] New glyph for U+014A

[Denis J. <mo...@gm...>]

On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 10:54 PM, Trosterud Trond <tro...@ui...> wrote:
>
> Michael Everson <ev...@ev...>
>  kirjoitti 9. nov. 2013 kello 21:40:
>
> For what it's worth, a cursory search led me to
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Saami_apphabet_1933.JPG . The picture
> clearly shows the "n"-form for Sami. This is an indication for the "N"-form
> being just a typographical variation.
>
>
> This is irrelevant to North, Inari and Skolt Saami, you are just misled by
> the name "Saami". What you have found is the latin alphabet being in use for
> Kildin Saami and (with modifications) many other languages in the Soviet
> Union in a short period up to 1935 (not generally known in the west at that
> time, or now, for that matter). This alphabet design was part of the KNA
> (komitet novogo alfavita) did all over the Soviet Union, and had no link
> whatsoever to the western tradition, established over 100 years earlier (cf.
> e.g. the s/z/r with comma below, as compared to the s/z (not r!) with caron
> in the west.

This is relevant to the shape of eng in general, it shows evidence of
the n-form in Europe and in the Saami continuum. Fair enough, it’s a
different language in a different country and in a different period,
but it is relatively close none the less.
Saami orthographies and alphabets only became as we know them in the
second half of the 20th century.
What lead to them like Stockfleth’s, Friis’ or Nielsen’s orthographies
can be seen printed with n with long leg for eng or comma above for
what is now only caron. See
http://www.calliidlagadus.org/web/index.php?sladja=56&vuolitsladja=76
or nb.no.
I’d be interested to see a capital eng in those orthographies.

In any case, the reality is that we are stuck with having to share
U+014A U+014B.
We can handle it with OpenType features in our fonts where possible.
If this is not a solution for you, we cannot please both preferences
by default, there are fonts that have the variant one prefers as the
default. The more the better.
If you want to discuss character disunification or its implications
there are better places than here, we can't do much about it here.
We’ll be glad to support whatever new character is encoded, whether we
agree or disagree that the should be encoded.

-- 
Denis Moyogo Jacquerye