I wanted to say that I have received a long response from Wayne Leman,
and that I intend to forward it (with some personal stuff edited)
to NAT-LANG. I would like to point out at this stage that I have not
suggested imposing an orthographic change or indeed even an orthography
for Cheyenne or any other language. What I am interested in doing, as
a member of ISO/JTC1/WG2 and CEN TC304, is to survey the characters used
both by tribal linguists and by ordinary (nonscientific) native writers in
order to ensure that required characters are supported by ISO 10646. I also
make fonts and am interested in Macintosh implementations; I would like
very much to discuss the question of encoding with experts in Cherokee, for
instance, and I am making these fonts for Rubie's project.
What is a concern with Cheyenne, for instance, is that (for instance) the
glyphs which some writers use for voiceless o is either O WITH DOT ABOVE or
O WITH RING ABOVE. Neither of these exists as a precomposed character in
ISO 10646. One or the other should be proposed. The question for Cheyenne
and perhaps other languages is "which character do you want to use";
Note that this does not imply "which glyph do you want to use", since
if, say, ring were chosen, fonts with dots instead could be used--
but the question is what unique character (code) should be used.
The decision could well be completely arbitrary. It's not for me
to make, though.
The question could seem moot to many, given the level of literacy in
Cheyenne (which Wayne says is rather low) and the number of computers
available to literate speakers. ISO 10646 is a new standard, and fault
reports are being submitted by some people to add characters or emend
errors. For my part if I can be of service to Native communities
by carrying out this survey, so much the better.
I am presently preparing several reports on European minority
scripts for presentation in Iceland at the next TC304 meeting, so
I don't know if I will have time to upload Wayne's response to
NAT-LANG before I get back from Iceland on 20 June. There were many
things in his response to be considered with regard to these issues,
and I will forward it (I have his permission) as soon as I can.
Michael Everson
Everson Gunn Teoranta
15 Port Chaeimhghein I/ochtarach
Baile A/tha Cliath 2, E/ire.