Re: [Ietf-languages] Suggestion to update Urdu Script Designation in the subtag registry

[John Cowan <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, Aug 13, 2020 at 12:29 PM Peter Constable <[e-mail]> wrote:


> For some languages written with Latin script, certain styles of fonts are
> preferred. For example, the Puyallup nature just south of where I live use
> fonts with a distinctive style.
>

As I understand the theory of script variants (and Michael probably
understands it better), they are about semi-legibility.  I can read Latn
text in pretty much any font (always excepting Stop <
http://www.identifont.com/show?374>, which combines the virtues of ugliness
with those of unreadability).  But I would find it tiring and painful to
read an English-language book in Latg, and impossible to read one in Latf,
because these variants are only semi-legible to someone who knows Latn
well.  (Legibility should not be confused with intelligibility, of course:
I can't understand Irish text whether it is Latn or Latg.)

Exactly when to say something is a mere font variant (and so unrecognized
by standards), a script variant, or a closely related but different script,
is always going to be a question, the same question as "Language or
dialect" but transposed to the key of scripts.

For instance, is the script of <
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Vesti-1631.jpg>, a page
of the first Russian-language newspaper ever, a mere handwriting font of
Cyrs (pre-Petrine Cyrilic), or another Cyrillic script variant, or
effectively a different script altogether?  I don't know.

Should Puyallup content be marked up with a tag that includes something
> indicating that distinct style? If another language doesn’t normally use
> the Puyallup style fonts but some documents do, should those documents be
> tagged to indicate that style?
>

If it made them illegible to speakers of that language, then I'd say yes.



John Cowan          http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan        [e-mail]
A rabbi whose congregation doesn't want to drive him out of town isn't
a rabbi, and a rabbi who lets them do it isn't a man.    --Jewish saying