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Date:         Mon, 16 Jun 1997 00:14:32 +0400
From: Vladimir Volovich <TeX@VVV.VSU.RU>
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To: Multiple recipients of list LATEX-L
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Subject:      Re: Multilingual TeX --- and a successor to TeX
Status: R

Hello,

Werner Lemberg wrote:

> > Both approaches work well (the former I've used in my vncmr package for
> > Vietnamese to define an ET5 encoding, the latter for a experimental LLW
> > encoding using the `fil' option of the LH fonts to get more characters)
> > for *all* encodings in the range 0x80-0xFF since the interface used here
> > for TeX is only 7bit, and \uccode and \lccode for characters >= 0x80 will
> > be never used.
>
> This is misleading, sorry. Of course I meant case changing only. For
> proper hyphenation you still need T2 encoded fonts if you don't want to
> change the lccodes.

I suppose that LLW encoding is something close to LWN encoding, in which one has
to use sequences of latin characters which are translated by means of ligatures
into russian letters (+some other, added by option `fil')?

Then, if we assume the default lccode and uccode values for characters 0x00..0x7f,
then \uppercase and \lowercase will work properly independently of lccode and uccode
settings for characters 0x80..0xff?
Is that what you meant by the phrase "both approaches work well for *all* encodings"?
Then I did not catch the idea, why "for proper hyphenation you still need T2 encoded fonts"?

BTW, is a ET5 encoding similar to LWN encoding in sence of using sequences
of latin letters to typeset vietnamese letters via ligatures?
How many letters are there in vietmamese alphabet?
And what about Chinese? (are the principles the same there, too?) ;-)

It is also interesting to know, is this `latin based' encoding popular
in Vietnam?

I'd like to say, that I'm 99.99% sure that the LWN encoding will not be widely
used as a native encoding in Russia (where Russian language is the main).
The LWN encoding (and all other `latin-based' russian encodings) is
only useful for typesetting small text pieces (such as bibliography references)
in a big non-russian text. Or maybe, when there are no packages available
to russify screen fonts and keyboard.
The *main* russian encoding (which will be *widely* used) will be 8-bit
(for both *external* TeX encoding and internal).
Why russian people should use combinations of latin characters to typeset Russian,
when they are able to typeset in a `native' encoding, when each letter
has it's own code and is visible on the screen? Moreover, it is not
too easy to read russian texts which are written in LWN encoding. ;-)

--
With best regards,
                   Vladimir.