Todo hyphen

[mheijdra]

Although the main discussion in this group is Mongolian in Traditional Mongolian, and not Todo, Manchu or Sibe, I would suggest incorporating a note on how the Todo hyphen is supposed to work.

[r12a]

@mheijdra would you be able to propose some text for this? (If so, contact me at ishida@w3.org so i can take you through the necessary agreements.)

[lianghai]

Btw, it’s mentioned by Badral Sanlig (@badaa) et al at April’s Mongolian Working Group meeting that the so called TODO SOFT HYPHEN is not only supposed to be used in Todo text, but it’s also used (or wanted, if there isn’t an established usage yet) in Mongolian/Hudum text. Badral might be able to provide more background information.

[xfq]

In the Unicode Standard, v11, p536:

In writing Mongolian and Todo, U+1806 mongolian todo soft hyphen is used at the beginning of the second line to indicate resumption of a broken word. It functions like U+2010 hyphen, except that U+1806 appears at the beginning of a line rather than at the end.

[r12a]

Folks, we need to clarify the situation about the Todo soft hyphen character for CSS folks as well as for our gap analysis (which i suspect needs to be rewritten). cc @badaa @mheijdra @fantasai

My understanding is as follows:

1. Mongolian words are not usually split during line-breaking (which is useful, because it avoids tricky questions about cursive behaviour at line breaks). However, compound words may contain hyphens. In those cases, the line may be broken at the hyphen. However, the hyphen should not remain on the same line, but should move to the next line.
2. Unicode provides U+1806 TODO SOFT HYPHEN for that. It has a line-break property value of BB (Break Before), so it should end up in the right place. Furthermore, it is not a formatting character (ie. it is always visible, just like U+2010 HYPHEN, and doesn't appear/disappear in certain contexts). Also, it's not only used in Todo, but also in Mongolian text.

Here are my questions:

1. is my summary above correct?
2. can anyone provide me with an example of such a compound word? I had a search but didn't find 1806 being used online, but perhaps it should be used rather than an ordinary hyphen for ᠠᠲ᠋ᠠ‍᠆ᠮᠠᠯᠢᠺ and ᠠᠳ᠋᠆ᠳᠢᠨ‍ ? source
3. is this hyphen only used for compound words, or should it be used generally for bits of text that are separated by hyphens? For example, would it be used for 2021-2030, or MK-DOS, or ᠪᠠᠷᠢᠮᠵᠢᠶ᠎ᠠ-8045, etc?

thanks for your help.

[r12a]

I tried it out on the major browser engines. For a test and results see w3c/line_paragraph_tests#84

Summary: Works on Blink & WebKit (though the latter doesn't produce readable text), but fails on Gecko.

[mheijdra]

Richard: As I mentioned in my message to Elika, your understanding on how it should work is mine also. But that is based upon written declaration of it; despite frequent requests for examples, I have not seen any examples. I have seen examples of a kind of nirugu between two parts of a compound name, written together, but where the presence of that "hyphen" (continuous with before and after, so again, "hyphen" may give the wrong connotations) does seem to underscore that the rules of vowel harmony do not carry over from the first part of the compound to the second (but the vowels in the second part are by default those in non-initial syllables). Martin [@r12a removed large amount of email include text]

[r12a]

perhaps it should be used rather than an ordinary hyphen for ᠠᠲ᠋ᠠ‍᠆ᠮᠠᠯᠢᠺ and ᠠᠳ᠋᠆ᠳᠢᠨ‍ ?

@mheijdra do you not think these compounds are candidates for examples?

[mheijdra]

I really wish I could see examples in reality. But somehow I have failed to recover any in the past (it has been a while), despite frequent requests. But I did my work when I only had very limited access to any specialists, apart from -indirectly, through Microsoft – with late prof Coyijungjab, who had put the character in in the first place. So I really would wish for an answer from the current group who is redesigning the system... (I did notice that these examples don’t copy well in the way how they affect previous and subsequent characters, but I suppose that is to be expected.) Martin [@r12a removed extensive email include text]

[ddamato]

Hi folks,

Not a native speaker of Mongolian, and I've haven't studied the language in over a decade but I still have all my reference material. According to Mongolian Grammar (D. Tserenpil, R. Kullman) we have the following description of hyphen usage in the script on p.402:

Marks local or temporal beginnings and ends.

On p.405, usage is extended for Cyrillic:

Hyphens are used to connect two words, numbers and their suffixes, and also to connect personal names: If the second of the two names begins with a vowel, then a hyphen is put in between them. In literature, works of similar meaning are equated using a hyphen

I found an example of the word "July" on p.85. The Cyrillic uses the hyphen, the script uses a space.

I also happened to find an English compound word on p.198 "pitch-black" which is not a hyphen compound in either Cyrillic or the script; just broken into two separate words.

My assumption, due to the language being classified as agglutinated, is that there are probably no hyphenated compound words native to the script. Moreover that the hyphen usage in the script is as stated above, only used for datetime range.

As a final rough check, I paged through my Mongolian English Dictionary (F. Lessing) looking for words with Cyrillic hyphens and didn't come across any. If you have something you'd like me to look up in particular to view the script, I have the physical copy.

[badaa]

Actually, the usage of the TODO SOFT HYPHEN would be high, if it works as expected or correctly. U+1806 is probably meant to connect Mongolian suffixes to abbreviations or foreign words. For example: Director General of UN will be written in Mongolian ᠨᠡ‍᠂ᠦ‍᠂ᠪᠠ‍᠂᠆ᠤᠨ ᠶᠡᠷᠦᠩᢈᠡᠢ ᠵᠠᢈᠢᠷᠤᠯ, and declinable by all grammar cases and other clauses. There exist numerous suffixes as Mongolian language is morphology rich.
Now what is the problem?
The problem is the suffixes must start without Titem which means suffixes must start like medial variant. Thus people use normal hyphen + nirugu in this case to show their text correctly.
It is what I can spontaneously say off by heart. I will ask other use cases from Jamiyan.
Remark:
It should not be confused with hyphen which is popularly used to write (compound) human names in Mongolia. Human names are written with hyphen if the second word starts with a vowel. It is already standardized in official Cyrillic script. Thus, people write always their names with hyphen also in Mongolian script. For example, Алтан-Уул, Altan-Uul (meaning Goldberg).

[eric-albert]

I pointed a few language experts to this conversation and Tim Brookes of Endangered Alphabets says he may know someone who could answer the questions here. Contact him at tim@endangeredalphabets.com and he’ll help out.

[ZmongolCode]

hyphen will give a lot of problems in real word.  ᠠᠯ᠊ᠳ᠋ᠠ ᠠᠯᠲᠠFirst one is a “scam” alta (gold) within one or many hidden hyphens. Mongolian script is a very simple thing. I’m not sure why people are trying to make it complicated by bringing “hyphen”, “MVS”, and “FVS” to make users avoid Mongolian scrip.  Users are tired of your “development” and “enhancement” now.  After 20 years developments, we are still in the development stage. Oh god.  By the way, we can’t even do a simple search in real world.  Stop bringing complication. Please. If you really want True development, please talk to real users for their actual requirements. Please do not get influenced by those fake experts who use Cryllic or Chinese in their daily life.  They have their own agenda and will miss lead you and the true users will suffer. Thanks.   Sent from my iPhoneOn 13 Jan 2023, at 12:47 AM

[ZmongolCode]

I mean I truly appreciate your kindness and continuous efforts for last two decades.But, those complications & use of advance technologies are too much for average users. We are not lack of features now, we want simplicity. Please do not view Mongolian script from your expert level, but feel it from some farmers/nomads/goat keeper who only have primary school education, with most simple phone or old computer.   Those are the millions of actual users.  Those fake “experts” from Ulaanbator or Huhhot are using Cryllic or Chinese in their daily life.  They do not use Mongolian in their daily life. They will only give you some complicated requirements and use your work achievements to get more funding for themselves. Simplicity brings Usability. “Make Mongolian script simple again!”Thank you. Sent from my iPhone

[r12a]

@ZmongolCode Thank you for your comments. While i share your frustration at the time it is taking to arrive at the best encoding model for Mongolian, and i sympathize with the need to keep Mongolian simple, it's not something we can fix here at the W3C. I recommend you contact the Unicode Consortium, who are the people working on that.

For clarity (for everyone participating in this discussion), this thread is not about MVS or FVS. It's about U+1806 TODO SOFT HYPHEN (or similar visible hyphens/dashes) and their relationship with line-breaking. If you'd like to discuss something else, feel free to start another issue.

Housekeeping note for those who are replying via email, rather than using the GitHub interface: please delete other people's emails from the bottom of your message before sending. That reduces clutter and makes it easier to follow the GH thread. Thanks.

[ZmongolCode]

Mongolian became a playground for every random people to kick around. Please leave us alone. I mixed the Todo hyphen u1806 and Nirugu u180A like below. ᠠᠳᠠ ᠴᠢᠳᠬᠦᠷ ᠊ᠣᠳᠠ᠊ᠳᠠ ᠴᠢ᠊ᠳᠬᠦᠷ ᠊ᠣᠳᠠ᠊᠊ᠳᠠ ᠴᠢᠳᠬᠦᠷ ᠊ᠣᠳᠠ᠊᠊᠊ᠳᠠ ᠴᠢᠳᠬᠦ᠊ᠷ ᠊ᠣᠳᠠ᠊᠊᠊ᠳᠠ ᠴᠢᠳᠬᠦ᠊᠊ᠷ ᠣᠳThe more random people touch our script, the more messy it is becoming. Adding one feature now will create another bug in the future. Just leave it alone. Someone will fix it like 50 years later.  Your “help” is appreciated, but in reality, it is not helping and creating more problem. Please pick another script and play around.  Thank you. Sent from my iPhone