[MPEG-OTSPEC] Issues from CSS: Will they be covered by the text shaping WG?

[梁海 Liang Hai]

Peter and fantasai,

The Bopomofo issue is deeply rooted in how it’s represented in Unicode characters, and how OTL should be utilized. So it can be as relevant as how the existing “script development specs” are.

Currently the text run boundary issue that hinders successful shaping (as reported by fantasai to the UTC: item F5 in https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20175-utc164-properties-rec.pdf) is a result of general modifier characters like U+02CA MODIFIER LETTER ACUTE ACCENT being rotated by layout engines and thus breaks text runs, then OTL isn’t possible to allow the special shaping of these modifiers required by Bopomofo. The question starts with: Should Bopomofo be encoded with these characters at all? This is why we’re gonna discuss this at the upcoming Unicode Script Ad Hoc meeting.

Best,
梁海 Liang Hai
https://lianghai.github.io