Re: Display of Mongolian in Arabic or Hebrew documents

Peter Constable wrote,

> In the short term, designing Mongolian glyphs in RTL orientation 
> would allow a Mongolian user to author content using existing 
> horizontal-layout applications. In the long term, that will make 
> support for vertical editing of Mongolian in general-purpose (i.e., 
> not Mongolian-specific) applications more costly and hence take 
> longer to be supported, if supported at all.

The user could simply place the monitor on its side...

Or a system of mirrors could be used.  (Perhaps in combination
with some smoke.)

There were some PC style software applications available in the
mid-1990s which offered vertical display of classic Mongolian
script, but the editing mode was LTR Latin transliteration. (IIRC)
(Qagucin and MLS are two systems which come to mind.)
Perhaps Peter (and Eric) might try to communicate with
Dr. Corff.  With his experience he may have direct evidence
about horizontal Mongolian embedded into RTL text.
( http://www.corff.de/ )

Peter has been on this list long enough to know that, even
if he is not seeking opinion or speculation, there are many
of us who will cheerfully share our opinions with him anyway.

His organization has ample resources with which to gather significant
evidence from reliable sources.  Asking on the Unicode list is a 
reasonable approach -- often evidence exists which can be provided
by list members.  But, we've mainly offered our opinions outlining
the solid reasoning behind them.  Clearly Peter needs to try other
avenues.  I urge Peter to try to get evidence from, say, Arabic 
linguistic publications.  Or Arabic numismatists, or something that 
would be conclusive.

If any information comes my way, I'll be happy to send it along.

Best regards,

James Kass