Re: Layer 2 and "idn identities" (was: Re: [idn] what are the IDN identifiers?)

["Bruce Thomson" <bthomson@fm-net.ne.jp>]

Written by liana Ye:

> 
> And Chinese TC/SC example:
> <wind> has four code points in Chinese:
> TC, SC, TC radical, SC radical.
> 
> I believe there are other code points of <wind>  have 
> been allowed in UCS.  Isn't  it a time to use the 
> "equivalent character set" term? Or may we use 
> "equivalent codepoints" to stay away from the lanugage
> connotation?
> 

So you would like these four code points to be normalized and
indistinguishable? There must be a huge cultural difference
between Japan and China in their feelings about the language.

In Japan, there are two characters for "river" (sorry, I am
not going to look up the code points.) But nobody here
in Japan would see the logic of treating them as identical.
They are different, and these differences between characters
are part of the rich culture of the nation.

To be sure, there are some characters that are so old that
while they are still used in names (such as in my own home address),
they could be normalized into their modern equivalents without
complaint. But who is going to sort all this out in a reasonable
timeframe?

The CJK unification makes it even worse, of course, as decisions
made for China affect other countries.

What is the down side of treating these characters as different,
anyway? Worst case, a company with "wind" in its name might
have to register two or even four variations of the name.
Works for me.

Bruce