At 16:59 +0200 2007-08-04, Håvard  Hjulstad wrote:
>The ballot on "Blissymbols" is ongoing.

When was it issued, and when does it end?

>  One of the questions on the ballot is:
>            ___ I am in favour of the indigenous 
>name "<a symbol like a reversed Z>".
>

An odd question. How can one be "in favour of" 
the name. Does this mean "in favour of the 
transcription"?

>Peter Constable commented:
>
>That’s not a name but a description of a name.

ASCII does not have symbol like a reversed Z in it.

>I assume we normally record the indigenous name 
>in the indigenous script or in a Latin 
>transliteration or transcription. AFAIK, we have 
>never provided a *description* of the former.

Bliss can't be transliterated as it has no 
inherent sound. The <symbol like a reversed Z> is 
read "Blissymbols" in English.

>Perhaps in this particular case, no system of 
>transliteration has ever been defined and might 
>even be unfeasible, in which case the indigenous 
>script might be the only option. I’d like some 
>discussion on these points on the JAC list, with 
>Michael Everson participating.

No, you can't transliterate as the langguage has 
no phonetic content. It is used by non-speaking 
people. It is the exception that proves the rule: 
it is truly ideographic.

>I assume reaching consensus regarding indigenous 
>name is not a prerequisite to coding the 
>language and publishing the coding.

If necessary a graphic image could be provided. 
Or perhaps there is a similar Unicode character 
that could be shown.

>It is an interesting case, of course. I assume 
>that there is no actual transcription of the 
>Blissymbols. Are the Blissymbols encoded in 
>Unicode? (I didn't find them.) So we probably 
>don't have any other way of including the 
>"indigenous name" than drawing or describing the 
>symbol.

Bliss is not yet encoded. A preliminary proposal 
can be found at 
http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n1866.pdf

>On the other hand: The actual encoding of the 
>item does not depend on a solution to the 
>indigenous name. We can discuss how to handle 
>this issue independently of the finalization of 
>the current ballot.

OK. :-)
-- 
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com