FW: [OpenType] Allowing DFLT to take languages

[Levantovsky, Vladimir]

Forwarding a reply from Eric Muller on another list:

-----Original Message-----
From: listmaster at indx.co.uk [mailto:listmaster at indx.co.uk] On Behalf Of Eric Muller 
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2016 11:52 AM
To: listmaster at indx.co.uk
Subject: Re: [OpenType] Allowing DFLT to take languages

Message from OpenType list:


I remember debating with myself whether to allow language-specific behavior under the DFLT script, back in 2001 when we (Adobe) proposed it.

I have been searching my memory for the rationale of not allowing it, and this is what I reconstructed:

- it seemed weird that you (font designer) would care to have language specific behaviors when you have no idea of the script. That may be more apparent if you think of OT script tag + OT language tag as (an approximation of) a locale; I believe that in the locale world, for all practical purposes, "fr" is really to be treated as if it were "fr-Latn-FR", ie a locale is always completed to have the three components (surely, if I ask for "what's the word for Monday in 'fr'" I don't expect the answer to come back in the Deseret script)

- if you really need to do something specific for language l, then you also know that it is commonly written in scripts x, y, z, and you can add (x, l, feature) -> lookup, (y, l, feature) -> lookup, (z, l, feature) -> lookup. Not necessarily very satisfactory, but there is a practical escape valve. And remember that if you have x, y or z in you font (for any language or feature), you need those anyway, (DFLT, dflt, feature) is not going to be used in that case.

- it is a lot easier to open the door to (DFLT, specific language) than to close it, from a system point of view; without a good case for it, it seemed prudent to leave the door closed at first.

While right now I am not opposed to opening the door, the third point still makes a lot of sense, and I would prefer to hear of a real use case before opening the door.

Eric.



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