[mpeg-OTspec] Re: [OpenType] Allowing DFLT to take languages

[John Hudson]

On 12/04/16 08:51, Eric Muller eric.muller at efele.net [mpeg-OTspec] wrote:

> - it seemed weird that you (font designer) would care to have language
> specific behaviors when you have no idea of the 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.
...
> - 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.

One of the functions of DFLT, as I understand it, is to provide access 
to OTL processing for PUA encoded characters. Since PUA is used to 
encode conscript and conlang characters that are excluded from standard 
Unicode encoding, but which function in parallel to conventional scripts 
and languages, it makes sense to me that DFLT should be able to take 
language system tags.

For example, Tolkien's Tengwar script was conceived by him for the 
writing of two different Elvish languages — Quenya and Sindarin —, and 
enthusiasts have adapted it to write a number of other languages 
(including earthly human languages). It seems to me quite conceivable 
that Tengwar font makers may wish to vary behaviour of the script on a 
language-specific basis. And of course, since Tengwar is a complex 
script but excluded from Unicode, they are dependent on PUA encoding and 
DFLT script OTL processing.

JH

-- 

John Hudson
Tiro Typeworks Ltd    www.tiro.com
Salish Sea, BC        tiro at tiro.com

Getting Spiekermann to not like Helvetica is like training
a cat to stay out of water. But I'm impressed that people
know who to ask when they want to ask someone to not like
Helvetica. That's progress. -- David Berlow