Re: Dotless J with stroke.

Andreas Stötzner wrote:

> 2. 025F is admittedly the basis for 0284,  its top part being defined as
> a “hook” but NOT as an “ascender”. “Hook” is a certain element which 
> occurs a couple of times in this range. So we are entitled to suppose 
> that all IPA’s hooks (blue cells, see att.) should match each other for 
> coherence. If than 0260, 029B and 02A0 feature hooks definitely 
> different from full-height crooked ascenders (e.g. 0253) than there is 
> no reason for dealing differently with 0284 in that respect.

But you are presuming that the names define the forms, but the IPA names were developed 
after the fact, to describe forms already in use. The character encoded as U+0284 has 
always had the form of a barred esh, originally made by inverting a hooked f. As far as 
I'm concerned, the name is irrelevant.

Further, the problem I find with your proposed form is that it defies a natural stroke 
construction. Even given the artificial nature of many IPA inventions, the basic test of 
writing is whether it can be written, and how it is most naturally written. I think you 
have misanalysed the construction of the 'hooktop barred dotless j' and other hook 
letters, because the distinction between hook forms is not between ascending and 
non-ascending letters but between hooks flowing into or out of main vertical stems (as in 
b-hook, d-hook, but also p-hook and, yes, this dotless j-hook) and hooks attached to other 
features of the letter (as in c-hook). In the dotless j, you have a main vertical stem, 
and any treatment of the hook other than flowing into that stem breaks the natural stroke 
pattern of the written form.

John Hudson

-- 

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