Subject: bug#58159: [PATCH] Add support for the Wancho script

From: Richard Stallman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2022 21:06:10 -0400

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  > I don't get how adding support for the Wancho script is complicating Emacs,
  > this

Normally a feature like this requires documentation in a manual as
well as code to implement it.

  > Have you considered that Wancho being a Sino-Tibetan language, Devanagari
  > and Latin script
  > may be inadequate to serve it?

It could be so, but there's no point in our speculating about it.  The
Wancho speakers can judge this.  If some decades from now they mostly
use the new alphabet, that will give it a real case for support.

  > It is though, having a separate script also provides a unique identity to
  > the language.

This tends to support my speculation, that the development of this
alphabet was part of a political influence campaign.

  > Urdu despite being virtually same with Hindi enjoys the status of a
  > separate language.

I don't speak either Urdu or Hindi, but I've read that Urdu has a lot
of vocabulary derived from Persian or Arabic.  With such a difference,
they are not "virtually the same."

But that is a tangent.  Each of those scripts is used by millions and
has been used for centuries.  It is clear that Emacs should support
them both.

  > Having a different script has aesthetic reasons as well for example how
  > could latin replicate the beauty
  > of devanagari conjuncts!

I found that a difficult complexity, for this human, and for software
too I expect.  But that too is a tangent.

My point is that when Unicode incorporates scripts that aren't and
never were used very much, and were developed for PR motives,
incorporation into Unicode is not by itself a reason to add support
into Emacs.

You're right that supporting _one_ barely-used script is not a
significant complexity.  If this is the only barely-used script that
Unicode incorporates, I won't keep arguing against it.

But if Unicode is inclined to do things like this, how many more
barely-used scripts will it adopt?  How many more has it already
adopted?

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)