Hi,
I'm adding Vietnamese language support for a client's existing Latin typeface.
I remember vaguely, not being an expert in Asian languages, that Vietnamese writing would contain combined diacritical marks that would stack atop or below letters.
Unfortunately, I'm *so* not finding any information on that on the internet that I'm writing a forum post
After research it appears to me that the Vietnamese alphabet consists of following encoded characters, and that mark positioning isn't even necessary: aAàÀảẢãÃáÁạẠăĂằẰẳẲẵẴắẮặẶâÂầẦẩẨẫẪấẤậẬbBcCdDđĐeEèÈẻẺẽẼéÉẹẸêÊềỀểỂễỄếẾệỆ
fFgGhHiIìÌỉỈĩĨíÍịỊjJkKlLmMnNoOòÒỏỎõÕóÓọỌôÔồỒổỔỗỖốỐộỘơƠờỜởỞỡỠớỚợỢpPqQrRsStTu
UùÙủỦũŨúÚụỤưƯừỪửỬữỮứỨựỰvVwWxXyYỳỲỷỶỹỸýÝỵỴzZ
Or, alternatively, which Latin based languages do you know of that use stacks of diacritical marks?
I'm looking for information as well as samples of encoded strings to use for designing and testing.
At the moment I believe that my mind is playing tricks on me.
THank you.
Comments
Here are some possible references to look at:
http://www.riverland.net.au/~clytie/viet/vietunicode.html
http://www.riverland.net.au/~clytie/viet/fonts.html
Hook Above: http://diacritics.typo.cz/index.php?id=60
Horn: http://diacritics.typo.cz/index.php?id=58
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/vietnamese.htm
I thought I had some other references lying around. When I run across them, I'll try to remember to post them. Right now, though, I have to get ready for my dance troupe's auditions tonight.
I've been aiming for both precomposed glyphs and mark/mkmk positioning, in general.
So it's really only a fixed set of encoded characters.
However, here's the answer to my question:
http://vietunicode.sourceforge.net/inputmethod.html
Input methods that involve typing the vowel and the diacritics separately. But unlike my memories the results aren't infinitely stackable diacritics, but only those exact same fixed set of characters, only with separated keyboard input and mark/mkmk positioning.
My memories were probably influenced by things like Glitchr who (mis-)use the mark/mkmk positioning.
Thanks.
Input methods are usually deadkey mechanisms, so the separate letters and marks keyed do not correspond to separate letter and mark characters stored in text. Instead, the key combinations are mapped to the precomposed diacritic characters.
If you are making a font in which you want to support both Vietnamese diacritics and also generic mark and mkmk GPOS, you'll want to precompose mark combinations in {ccmp} for the Vietnamese language system tag, but decompose the combinations in {ccmp} for default script processing.
You inquired about other Latin-based alphabets stacking diacritics. One example is Livonian that employs a wider array of diacritics than the neighbouring Finno-Ugric languages —Estonian and Finnish which avoid stacking by reduplication of long vowels. The Livonian orthography, unfortunately, followed the Latvian standard - marking long vowels with a macron and thus yielding the dubious skyscrapers: Adieresismacron, Odotaccentmacron, Otildemacron and their respective lowercase relatives.