RE: Ethiopic script
Forwarding on behalf of Andreas Wetter. Sarmad From: Andreas Wetter Sent: Sunday, March 08, 2015 1:48 AM To: Sarmad Hussain Subject: Re: Ethiopic script Dear Sarmad, finally, I am sending my comments on the proposal for the Ethiopic script. I have to apologize for whiting so long. But I learned some new information about some signs after I came to Ethiopia last week, and so I think it was worth waiting. I just give you my comments on each language below: Me'en According to a specialist of this language at the university of Addis Ababa there doesn't seem to be any usage of the Ethiopic script for the language. Therefore the signs 2D80 to 2D92 aren't be used by anyone currently. It seems that they became part of Unicode based on the recommendation of a paper presented on the 15th International Unicode Conference 1999 by Tsigie et al. Blin With regard to Blin the signs marked red are in fact used (for an older book see https://archive.org/stream/gospelofmarkinbi00rein#page/4/mode/2up). The language has been written in the Ethiopic script for more than a century (Fallon 2006). Although the Eritrean government decided to introduce a Latin based orthography for the language the Ethiopic script is still used among the Blin diaspora. Currently there seems to be a digraphia among speakers of the language. Examples from other languages (e.g. Harari) show that the use of scripts can change quite rapidly. The probability that the Ethiopic script will be used for Blin in the future is therefore relatively high. Having said that the signs in question, i.e. 2D93 to 2D96, are actually used in the official orthographies of two Agaw languages of Ethiopia which are not mentioned in the Unicode, namely Awngi and Khamtanga. Therefor those signs should be marked yellow instead of red. Sebatbeit With regard to some of the signs labelled "Sebatbeit" I can confirm that they had been used in two novels written. The signs in Unicode actually seem to originate from the orthography of those novels. But according to specialists of Addis Ababa University, those signs aren't in use. Instead, redundant signs which already exist in the standard set of Ethiopia are used, and one additional new set has been created, which isn't part of Unicode. Gamo-Gofa-Dawro I can't comment on the signs which are assigned to Gamo-Gofa-Dawro. Those languages are written with a Latin-based orthography. Basketo The signs for Basketo can be confirmed. But the signs AB11 to AB16 aren't used. Gumuz I can't comment on the signs which are assigned to Gumuz. Reference Tsigie, Asteraye, Berhanu Beyene, Daniel Aberra, and Daniel Yacob. "A roadmap to the extension of the Ethiopic writing system standard under Unicode and ISO-10646". 15th International Unicode Conference. August/September, 1999. San Jose, CA. I hope that will help a little. Best regards, Andreas *************************************************************** Dr. Andreas Wetter Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Unter den Linden 6 10099 Berlin <http://amor.cms.hu-berlin.de/~wetteran> http://amor.cms.hu-berlin.de/~wetteran Attachment:
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