[MPEG-OTSPEC] Two GSUB Proposals for OFF: 'cabp' and 'hypy'

[Ken Lunde]

Fuji-san,

I once discussed this very issue with notable typography Robert Bringhurst, which was almost 25 years ago. He imparted onto me a very useful gem of wisdom, specifically that transliteration and transcription systems are meant to facilitate communication, not hinder it, and imposing specific typographic conventions on what are considered to be insignificant typographic distinctions is counter-productive. This applies to the perceived directionality of the acute accent, and to the specific forms of lowercase a and g.

My personal conclusion is that while conventional fonts need not adhere to the conventions that would be supported by the proposed 'hypy' feature, highly-specialized fonts, such as those used for preparing official educational materials that may include a mixture of foreign words and Chinese words expressed in Pīnyīn, would benefit from it. In other words, I would not oppose the registration of this particular layout feature, but its description should mention its highly-specialized usage.

Eiso: About your reply to Fuji-san, it seems that even the official 汉语拼音方案 does not enforce these forms consistently. The 1958 version uses conventional a and g, but uses a directional acute accent mark:

http://www.moe.gov.cn/ewebeditor/uploadfile/2015/03/02/20150302165814246.pdf

The 2012 revision shows only the single-story lowercase g:

http://edu.shandong.gov.cn/attach/0/b72295c44ff442c8b333a481f524dbe9.pdf

I also found this version:

https://jwc.qzc.edu.cn/_upload/article/files/ff/32/cc69a400496186407e64fa4338cc/232fc89a-19af-4b9c-a829-a936d8a8919b.pdf

It would be helpful if you could explain the discrepancies, and if there is a more current and official version, it would be helpful to see the actual document.

Regards...

-- Ken

> On Feb 29, 2024, at 02:45, Takaaki Fuji 藤 貴亮 via mpeg-otspec <mpeg-otspec at lists.aau.at> wrote:
> 
> Dear Eiso,
> 
> I'm just curious, but for ‘hypy’, is there any good source I can look at for the ‘official' glyph forms of Hanyu Pinyin?
> 
> If I understand the issue correctly, ‘hypy’ is not only about the Futura-like one-story a/g shown in Example, but also the tone marks are preferred to have a 'reverse-modulation’; while an acute is always stroked from top to bottom as a Latin accent, as a Pinyin mark it goes upwards from left to right to illustrate the second/rising tone. I imagine this conflict/divergence has long been such an issue in a dual-script situation, so switching between the two via GSUB sounds like a great improvement to me!
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Takaaki Fuji
> 
>> On Feb 26, 2024, at 9:38, 陈永聪 via mpeg-otspec <mpeg-otspec at lists.aau.at> wrote:
>> 
>> This is my first proposal for OFF. Please see http://cloud.caaph.com:10121/f/fed7bd2e3d/ 
>> I suggest adding two GSUB features. 'cabp' is used to support GB/Z 40637—2021, 'hypy' is used to support the special glyphs forms used for Hanyu Pinyin.
>> 
>> If you have any suggestions or feedbacks, please let me know.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Eiso_______________________________________________
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>> mpeg-otspec at lists.aau.at
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