Return-Path: Received: from video.uic.vsu.ru ([62.76.169.38] verified) by vsu.ru (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 3.4b5) with ESMTP id 2104295 for CyrTeX-en@vsu.ru; Wed, 22 Nov 2000 17:16:36 +0300 Sender: vvv@video.uic.vsu.ru To: (Cyrillic TeX Users Group) Subject: Re: \cyrapos ???? References: From: Vladimir Volovich Date: 22 Nov 2000 17:17:13 +0300 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Lines: 54 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii "LS" == Laurent Siebenmann writes: LS> Interesting. Then maybe \CYRapos is the right solution? However, LS> that will place a stubborn road- block in the way of the LS> typographer who wants distinct lowercase and uppercase Cyrillic LS> apostrophes. Maybe there are none today (??). But what about the LS> furure? The \CYRAPOS \cyrapos solution seems more standard and LS> more powerful (less limiting). well, -- there are uppercase AND lowercase variants defined in unicode for most letters, but there is NO uppercase/lowercase variant defined for apostrophe (and palochka as well). so, it seems that there is NO uppercase or lowercase form of apostrophe character, -- there is only one invariant character. there could be a distinction on the glyph level, where we could wish to support more letter forms than the number of available characters, but at the character level, there is only one apostrophe. i do not know whether Ukrainian typesetting distinguishes upper- and lowercase variants of apostrophe, -- we need some more info about this (does anyone on the list know something about this?). LS> TeX can do better here in the Cyrillic world where TeX is young LS> and flexible. surely, -- if we have a font (or font set) with all needed glyphs, we could use it in TeX. it is possible to typeset texts in utf-8 encoding using TeX (even not Omega). the question is whether apostrophe should be supported in both cases (upper and lower). LS> Is it not dangerous to allow even one letter in the Cyrillic LS> script fall out of the 100% control of Cyrillic users?? perhaps, i can agree here. it is strange however that unicode does not define this _letter_ used in the cyrillic scripts in the cyrillic area, like all the other cyrillic letters. is it a `bug' in unicode, or is `MODIFIER LETTER' not considered as a letter? is the apostrophe a letter or a `modifier letter'? what is the difference? if the `apos' character defined in unicode is NOT a 100%-letter, but the apostrophe used in the Ukrainian language IS a 100%-letter, then obviously the character `apos' is not correct to be referred to or used in ukrainian texts. are there any standards in the Ukraine that define and distinguish apostrophe letter from the ascii apostrophe? Best, v.