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ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N2628
Date: 2003-09-29
This is a DOC version of a document to be submitted to WG2.

Title: Proposal to add COMBINING RIGHT DOT ABOVE asrequired by Taiwanese Holo language Romanization toISO/IEC 10646
Source: TCA
Status: Member Contribution
Action: For consideration by JTC1/SC2/WG2

A. Administrative
1. Title

Proposal to add COMBINING RIGHT DOT ABOVE as required byTaiwanese Holo language Romanization to ISO/IEC 10646

2. Requester's name

Association for Taiwanese Romanization; Taiwan Ethnic Language
Promoting Committee of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan;
Department of Language Education of the National Taitung
University; Institute of Taiwan Literature of the National Cheng Kung
University, Taiwan.

3. Requester type

Contribution from experts

4. Submission date2003-09-29

5. Requester's reference

http://69.50.194.230/~lomajic/tavi/index.php?page=Proposal

6a. Completion

This is a complete proposal.

6b. More information tobe provided?

No

B. Technical – General
1a. New script? Name?

No

1b. Addition of characters to existing
block? Name?

Yes. Combining Diacritical Marks.

2. Number of characters

1

3. Proposed category

Category A.

4. Proposed level of implementation and Implementation level is 3.
rationale2/12

5a. Character names included inproposal?

Yes

5b. Character names in accordance withguidelines?

Yes

5c. Character shapes reviewable?

Yes (see 6b and Appendix)

6a. Who will provide computerized font? Phahng Taiwanese Workshop; Tan Pek-tiong[Po-Chung Chen]
6b. Font currently available?

Yes (see http://www.phahng.idv.tw/)

6c. Font format?

TrueType

7a. Are references (to other character sets,
Yes. An 8-bit font was commonly used. It has dedictionaries, descriptive texts, etc.)
facto use status.
provided?
7b. Are published examples (such assamples from newspapers, magazines, Yes. See appendix.
or other sources) of use of proposedcharacters attached?
8. Does the proposal address other aspects Noof character data processing?

C. Technical – Justification
Yes. The Annual World Conference on Taiwanese
Languages (TW, US, 1995-2002), the Bible Society (TW),
1. Contact with the user community? HOTSYS-HAKSYS (US), 5% Taiwanese Translation
Project (TW), Taiwanese Writing Forum (TW, US), andusers elsewhere (CA, DE, GB, JP).

2. Information on the usercommunity?

Taiwanese Holo, more commonly known as Min Nan([zh- min-nan]), is used by about 14,345,000 Taiwanese, or67% of the population in Taiwan. Variants of Peh-oe-ji("colloquial writing") are attested by a continuous
literature dating back to the latter half of the nineteenthcentury. It remains the only Taiwanese Latin script withcomplete Bibles published. The script is now taught
through the public educational system.

3a. The context of use for theproposed characters?

General, with specialist uses in education, literature, andlinguistics. Modern publications often use the Latincharacters in conjunction with Han characters.

3b. Reference

See Tiun (1998).

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4a. Proposed characters in currentuse?

Yes.

4b. Where?

Taiwan and expatriate communities.

5a. Characters should be encoded
entirely in BMP?

Yes

5b. Rationale

Latin is a Category A script.

6. Should characters be kept in acontinuous range?

Not necessarily.

7a. Can the characters be considereda presentation form of an existing No.
character or character sequence?
7b. Where?
7c. Reference

See Section E for rationale.

8a. Can any of the characters be
considered to be similar (inappearance or function) to an
existing character?

No

8b. Where?
8c. Reference

See Section E for rationale.

9a. Combining characters or use ofcomposite sequences included?

No

9b. List of composite sequences andtheir corresponding glyph images No
provided?
10. Characters with any special
properties such as control
function, etc. included?

No

D. SC2/WG2 Administrative
To be completed by SC2/WG2
1. Relevant SC 2/WG 2 document numbers:
2. Status (list of meeting number and corresponding action or disposition)
3. Additional contact to user communities, liaison organizations etc.

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4. Assigned category and assigned priority/time frame
Other Comments

E. Proposal
User community
The Latin script Peh-oe-ji is used to write the Holo language of Taiwan. Taiwan is an island in theWestern Pacific Ocean, north of the Philippines, off the southeastern coast of continental China,
about 23o 30'N 121o 00'E. About 23 million people live in Taiwan. Taiwanese Holo, more commonly
known as Min Nan, is used by about 14,345,000 Taiwanese, or 67% of the population in Taiwan.
(Ethnologue).

Issues
1. Other Latin scripts for this languages also exist, though far less prevalent, in Taiwan. Most
modern publications use a mixture of Han and Latin scripts, with the proportion of each differingfrom author to author.
2. COMBINING RIGHT DOT ABOVE should be added.
2.1 COMBINING DOT ABOVE is not a valid alternative to COMBINING RIGHT DOTABOVE:
2.1.1 Although the proposed COMBINING RIGHT DOT ABOVE and the existing
COMBINING DOT ABOVE have similar appearance and probably the same function
indicating an open vowel "o", in no publication has COMBINING DOT ABOVE
appeared in the place of COMBINING RIGHT DOT ABOVE. Therefore it isinappropriate to view the proposed character COMBINING RIGHT DOT ABOVE as apresentation form of COMBINING DOT ABOVE.
2.1.2 Literate Peh-oe-ji reader will not accept COMBINING DOT ABOVE to be a correct(alternative) rend ition of COMBINING RIGHT DOT ABOVE. If a new learner writes
COMBINING DOT ABOVE for COMBINING RIGHT DOT ABOVE, a responsible
teacher will correct the learner.
2.1.3 No literature ever showed COMBINING DOT ABOVE as the "original" COMBININGRIGHT DOT ABOVE. The dot is not simply moved to the right to make space fortones. Even in the absence of other combining diacritics, it appears as COMBININGRIGHT DOT ABOVE, not COMBINING DOT ABOVE. That is, the position of theCOMBINING RIGHT DOT ABOVE is determined rela tive to the base characters, notother diacritics. In Vietnamese, on the other hand, where two (up class) combining
diacritics associate with a base character, some of the diacritics are re-positioned to theleft or right of the other diacritics.
2.1.4 COMBINING DOT ABOVE would be considered as a tonal diacritic, whereas
COMBINING RIGHT DOT ABOVE is considered a part of an integral, independentvowel in the alphabet.
2.1.5 O/o WITH COMBINING RIGHT DOT ABOVE can not be treated as a variation ofO/o WITH COMBINING DOT ABOVE since according to the Unicode Standard 4.0

5/12"[t]he base character in a variation sequence is never a combining character nor adecomposable character."
2.2 MIDDLE DOT is not a valid alternative to COMBINING RIGHT DOT ABOVE:
2.2.1 COMBINING RIGHT DOT ABOVE is closer to the vowel (LATIN
CAPITAL/SMALL LETTER O) than the tonal diacritic. Using MIDDLE DOT breaks
this logic, and creates major difficulty in sorting and other processes.
2.2.2 Although some literature showed MIDDLE DOT as an alternative to COMBININGRIGHT DOT ABOVE, these examples are exceptions created under severe lack oftypographic technologies, and should not be used against good typographic practice.
2.2.3 COMBINING RIGHT DOT ABOVE should be a combining diacritical mark, while
MIDDLE DOT is a spacing character. When applying a combining diacritical mark(such as COMBINING GRAVE ACCENT, U+0300) to a sequence of LATIN
CAPITAL LETTER O + MIDDLE DOT, the diacritical mark is operating on theMIDDLE DOT rather than LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O.

References•

Bible Society. Sin-ku-iok Seng-keng (Amoy Romanized Bible). Bible Society, Taipei,Taiwan, 1964. [Cat. No. AR 065 T, first published 1933.]•Department of Language Education of the National Taitung Teachers College. [N2507:
Draft of proposal to add Latin characters required by Latinized Holo language to ISO/IEC10646], 2002.

•

William Campbell, E-mng-im Sin Ji-tian (Dictionary of the Amoy Vernacular). Tai-oan
Kau-hoe Kong-po-sia, Tainan, Taiwan, 1993-06. [First published 1913-07.]•Ko Chek Hoan and Tan Pang Tin. Sin- iok (New Testament), the Ko-Tan/Kerymatic
colloquial Taiwanese version, 1972-08-31.

•

Iau Cheng-to. Cheng-soan Peh-oe-ji (Concise Colloquial Writing). Jin-kng, Tainan, Taiwan,
1992.

•Sou Chi-beng (Jemeng Soh). Various versions of HOTSYS and HAKSYS.
OTSYS-HAKSYS, 1994 to 1997. http://www.hotsys- haksys.com/•Te Khai-su and Michael Everson. [N1593: Proposal to add Latin characters required byLatinized Taiwanese languages to ISO/IEC 10646], 1997.

•Tiun Hak-khiam. Writing in Two Scripts. Written language and literacy. 1:225-247, 1998.

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Names
COMBINING RIGHT DOT ABOVE

8-bit 2022-compatible code table

8-bit de- facto font code table7/12[Note: Due to the limitation of this wiki in processing UTF-8, non-formatting spacing has been
inserted within certain syllables to allow reasonable display of affected characters.]

Appendix: Published examplesExample 1 -- Source : Amoy- English Dictionary p923, 1976, Tâi-tiong : Maryknoll

Example 2 -- Source : Source : Bernard L.M. A Dictionary of Southern Min p188, 1973, Hong
Kong Language Institute8/12

Example 3 – Source : Tân-lûi, Éng-óan ê k±-hiong p60, 1994, Tâi-pak : Ö ng-bûn

Example 4 -- Source : Sin-kü- iok ê Sèng-keng , 1916,

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Example 5 – Source : Chiu Tiông-ch… p & Khng Khé-bêng, Tâi-ôan Bän- lâm-öe kàu-thêng p97,1997, Pîn-tong : An-khó

Example 6 – Source: Âng Hui-chiòng, Eng-gú Ban-lâm-gú ji-tián p2, 1995, Tâi-tiong : Maryknoll10/ 12

Example 7 – Source : Iâu Chèng-tö, Cheng-sóan Pçh-öe-j„ p67, 1997, Tâi- lâm : Jîn-kng

Example 8 – Source : Të° Liông- úi & Siä Siok-koan , Tâi-ôan Hok-kiàn-öe ê gú-im kiat-k± kap
piau-im- hòa p164, Tâi-pak : Hãk-seng11/ 12

Example 9 – Source : Siau Pêng-t„, Tâi-ôan siõk-gú kiâm-sng-ti° (2) p83, 2000, Chiong-hòa :Löa-Kh¯-jiû ki-kim- höe

Example 10 – Source : Thian- lítäi- hãk, Hiän-täi Bän- lâm- gú sû-tián, 1981, Japan : Thian-lí täi- hãk12/ 12Example 11 – Source : George Ede, Sam-jü-keng Sin-chöan pçk-öa chù-kái, 1894, Tâi- lâm : Sin- lâu

Example 12 – Source : Tâi-ôan Hú-siâ° Kàu- höe-pò, 1885, Tâi- lâm