[XeTeX] [OT] character encoding ideas [was: Re: Strange hyphenation with polyglossia in French]

[Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd)]

Jonathan Kew wrote:

 > What about British English "d" versus American English "d"? Would they be distinct?

(Provocative statement removed from public copy).

[M]ore seriously, in making such a decision the standards
body would need to consider a number of factors.  For example,
do texts expressed in A use exactly the same character set
as texts expressed in B ? (Answer "yes" for <Am.E>/<Br.E>,
"no" for <VN>/<EN>.  Do texts expressed in A convey the
same meaning as the same text expressed in B ? ("not always"
and "no", respectively).  Do texts expressed in A, when
spoken by a native speaker of A, sound the same (whatever
that means) as the same text in B spoken by a native
speaker of B ? ("No", for Mandarin/Cantonese, for example).

I am not trying to suggest for one second that I have
all the answers, Jonathan (afterthought : or perhaps
even any of them); rather that Unicode was a
good attempt, but I am sure we can do better if we
try (and I think we /should/ try).

** Phil.