Re: Encoding Personal Use Ideographs (was Re: Level of Unicode support required for various languages)

Andrew West wrote,

> If you were going to ask me what the "best" way to represent kanji
> ligatures such as <U+2FF5 U+9580 U+9F8D> would be under an ideal
> Unicode model, I would say as <U+9580 U+200D U+9F8D>, using ZWJ to
> indicate the ligation, and smart fonts would ligate the two components
> into a single glyph if they could. ...

Your suggestion to use ZWJ turns out to actually be working in the
real world.  I've successfully tested a font which makes a substitution
for <U+9580 U+200D U+9F8D>.  A glyph from the PUA appears in the
display instead of the string.

Trying the same kind of set-up with the ideographic description
character, however, does not work here.  Unfortunately.

Should the use of ZWJ in running CJK text to promote the formation
of "ligatures" for the purpose of representing such personal characters
be encouraged or discouraged?  Do the Unicode mavens have any strong
objections to such a practice?

Best regards,

James Kass