t-with-cedilla vs t-with-comma

[srl295]

Looking at this sample text from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurențiu_Man :

[Title] Laurențiu Man
Laurenţiu Man was a Hungarian noble…

The article title uses U+021B which is t with comma below, and (inconsistently) the first line uses U+0163 which is t with cedilla. In Plex Sans and Plex Serif, both characters look like a comma below. Compare to Times New Roman on a mac (light blue) which has a distinct t-with-cedilla.

[srl295]

[moyogo]

Unfortunately, this is a common mistake.

Latin small letter t with cedilla U+0163, ţ, should look like a t with cedilla and not like a t with comma below in the Makanya language, the Manjak language, and also probably in the turkic language Gagauz since it also uses ç and ş. The same goes for the uppercase character U+0162.

[srl295]

@liancu-uni

[mjabbink]

@srl295 @moyogo

In Romanian I believe the comma is correct and not the cedilla. But I do not have deep knowledge in Romanian or Turkish. The article below may shed some light on the topic.

https://kitblog.com/2019/en/romanian-diacritic-marks/

More:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-comma

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_alphabet

[fitojb]

In Romanian I believe the comma is correct and not the cedilla.

@mjabbink, Denis is talking about Makanya, Manjak and Gagauz, not Romanian. The typeface should have the correct diacritic in the correct code points, that’s why Unicode separates them, to support Romanian as well as Makanya.

[moyogo]

The issue is that IBM Plex fonts are not coherent.

The cedilla characters ŞşŢţ (015E, 015F, 0162, 0163) were used in Romanian before the comma below characters ȘșȚț (0218, 0219, 021A, 021B) were added to Unicode to be specifically used in Romanian. Yet IBM Plex fonts treat Şş (015E, 015F), drawn with cedilla, differently from Ţţ (0162, 0163), drawn with comma below, as if Ţţ (0162, 0163) were still meant to be used in Romanian only.

Ţţ (0162, 0163), like Şş (015E, 015F), should be drawn with cedilla by default since are used in other languages or transcription systems that need them to have the cedilla shape. Optionally, fonts could substitute them for the comma-below characters but only in Romanian and Moldovan with the locl feature, in order to support older text data.

[mjabbink]

I understand the situation now and we will fix

[mjabbink]

@BoldMonday

[BoldMonday]

@mjabbink: I will look into this.

@moyogo: Where can I find more background information about the languages in question: Makanya, Manjak and Gagauz?

[moyogo]

@BoldMonday What kind of background information are you looking for?

For Gagauz, the alphabet letters were defined in Moldovan law from 1993 (http://www.legis.md/cautare/getResults?doc_id=85313&lang=ro) and amended in 1996 (http://www.legis.md/cautare/getResults?doc_id=60878&lang=ro).

For Makanya and Manjak, there are two Senegalese laws setting their alphabets and orthographic rules:

• République du Sénégal, Décret no 2005-983 relatif à l’orthographe et la séparation des mots en manjakú, 21 octobre 2005
• République du Sénégal, Décret no 2005-984 relatif à l’orthographe et la séparation des mots en mankaañ, 21 octobre 2005

[BoldMonday]

@moyogo I am interested to see if those languages require other glyphs that are currently not in IBM Plex for example.

[moyogo]

Makanya uses: a b c d e ë f g h i j k l m n ñ ŋ o p r s ş t ŧ ţ u w y

Manjak uses: a b c d e ë f g h i j k l m n ñ ŋ o p r s ŝ t ţ u w y z

[AlsoScratch]

@BoldMonday @mjabbink Any time frame for when the Ţţ characters might be corrected?

[mjabbink]

@BoldMonday We should address this. Let’s discuss.

[srl295]

@mjabbink @BoldMonday any update on this?

[BoldMonday]

Yes. This is fixed in the upcoming versions of Plex Sans and Plex Sans Condensed. The files have been delivered to IBM.

[mjabbink]

Should be released soon.

[mjabbink]

I believe this is covered in the latest released

[BoldMonday]

Yes, Plex Sans and Plex Sans Condensed are fixed now.

[BoldMonday]

Fixed in Plex Mono v2.3 (part of Release v6.0.0).

[tay1orjones]

Hey there! v6.1.0 was just released that references this issue.

Comment here or join the release discussion to provide feedback or voice concerns. Thanks!

[tay1orjones]

Hey there! v6.3.0 was just released that references this issue.

Comment here or join the release discussion to provide feedback or voice concerns. Thanks!

[srl295]

Hey there! v6.3.0 was just released that references this issue.

Comment here or join the release discussion to provide feedback or voice concerns. Thanks!

Thanks!!