[XeTeX] TeXworks & XeTeX : Pinyin u-with-third-tone

[Daniel Greenhoe]

>> Since you are using Antykwa fonts for the newsletter,
>> I'm wondering whether you already considered to
>> ask the authors to add the glyph.

It would make a nice Christmas gift. However, the addition called for
would really be an entire block of glyphs. Of course standard pinyin
requires four tone markers: first tone (high tone), second tone
(rising tone), third tone (low tone), and forth tone (falling tone).
And these tone markers can appear above any of the vowels a, e, i, o,
or u. So that requires a minimum support of 20 glyphs (4x5=20 ...
impressed with my math???)

In addition, and this may only be me, but I don't like to put a tone
marker over the i because there is already an ominous dot hovering up
there and I don't like making the upper space even more crowded with
another symbol (and I don't like having the dot removed and simply
replaced with a tone marker). So that sometimes means moving the tone
marker to the space above a consonant, meaning at least some
consonants glyphs with tone markers may also be good.

For example, in
  ping(2) an(1)  (generally meaning "peace")
where a rising tone marker is needed above the "ping", I would prefer
to put the tone marker above the "n" rather than above the "i".

Dan

On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 5:50 PM, Philip TAYLOR <P.Taylor at rhul.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
> Daniel Greenhoe wrote:
>
>> Wouldn't a simple \v{u} render sufficient quality?
>
>
> Reinhard Kotucha wrote :
>
>> I suppose that the idea was to use \v{u} in order to compose the
>> glyph and am sure that you don't need LaTeX in order to achieve this.
>
>
> You are both quite correct, it almost certainly would.
> The problem is, once one starts using Unicode, one tends
> to forget the earlier TeX methods for glyph composition,
> and I certainly did in this case.  However, whether \v {u}
> is really any  better than ŭ is philosophically debatable :
> both are  kludges, and I was really looking for a cleaner solution !
>
>> Since you are using Antykwa fonts for the newsletter, I'm wondering
>> whether you already considered to ask the authors to add the glyph.
>> I suppose that the glyph is missing because they didn't know that you
>> need it.
>
>
> I hadn't considered that, mainly because I know just how
> busy the authors are, but I suppose I might ask if they
> could consider it in time for next year's newsletter ...
>
> ** Phil.
>
>
>
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