List characters and layout features that have been established in Manga but do not have appropriate support

[kidayasuo]

Known examples:

• 「あいうえお」with voiced mark
• variations of prolonged sound mark, which are currently substituted by WAVE/WAVY DASH and their repetition.

[r12a]

@kidayasuo do you have examples of these which you can scan and share?

[r12a]

Also, any idea of their prevalence? Is this really niche, or is it in general (and perhaps) growing use?

[xfq]

る with voiced mark:

Source: One Piece Volumes 60 (弟よ), Chapter 590 (弟よ) (ISBN: 978-4-08-870125-7)

[xfq]

Variations of prolonged sound mark:

Source: One Piece Volumes 2 (VERSUS!!バギー海賊団), Chapter 11 (敗走) (ISBN: 4-08-872544-1)

[xfq]

Also, any idea of their prevalence? Is this really niche, or is it in general (and perhaps) growing use?

@kidayasuo may know more, but I personally feel that these are not commonly used in daily life, but they are often seen in manga (I just found them by skimming a manga quickly).

[kidayasuo]

[kidayasuo]

As we can tell from the fact that people can find examples very quickly, they are used in manga quite frequently. Some of them, in particular voiced vowels and variation of prolonged sound mark, are getting popularity outside of manga context, mainly casual style messages.

[kidayasuo]

Mizuno-san @ Iwata told me there is a gaiji font product containing these characters, which is on sale for 20 years. He sent me a PDF listing all characters (which also has other kinds of gaiji) but it seems it is too large to paste to a GH issues.

[himorin]

Also, any idea of their prevalence? Is this really niche, or is it in general (and perhaps) growing use?

@kidayasuo may know more, but I personally feel that these are not commonly used in daily life, but they are often seen in manga (I just found them by skimming a manga quickly).

in non-formal chat like SNS, something like あ゛ was commonly used over five+ years in Japanese.

[kidayasuo]

@hiromin, do you have examples from ラノベ?

[r12a]

Excellent to have such examples! Thank you.

However, i have two other questions:

1. How does one pronounce these things ? ;-)
2. Does the Unicode Consortium have any plans to create precomposed characters for these? (I assume not, since that would lead to normalisation issues.)

[kidayasuo]

Probably many Japanese would intuitively know how to pronounce vowels with voiced sound mark and variations of prolonged sound mark. The voiced sound mark makes the vowel muddy or distorted. Variations of prolonged sound mark controls vibration of the prolonged sound, expressing emotions. I do not know how to pronounce non-vowels with voiced sound mark. I believe it would also make the sound distorted, probably by narrowing the throat? somebody?

At this point, what I want to do is to just collect cases where we do not have enough support, before discussing possible solutions. Unicode can encode the non-standard use of the voiced sound mark even today as there is a combining version of the character. Fonts do not have have pre-composed and optimized version of the glyphs unlike standard use of the voiced sound mark however. Input methods also do not support them. On the other hand there is no good way of encoding variations of prolonged sound mark. The font I mentioned uses gaiji or private use area code points to support them.

[himorin]

Probably many Japanese would intuitively know how to pronounce vowels with voiced sound mark and variations of prolonged sound mark. The voiced sound mark makes the vowel muddy or distorted. Variations of prolonged sound mark controls vibration of the prolonged sound, expressing emotions. I do not know how to pronounce non-vowels with voiced sound mark. I believe it would also make the sound distorted, probably by narrowing the throat? somebody?

I've noticed sometimes in youtuber or VTuber movie, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3oKqA-M0_Y&t=555s (shouting) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=broiA2-R014&t=521s (shouting again) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlJpXQYTNX0&t=1s (cut from famous TV animation in Japan)

Actually, there is already a law-less presentation form, just as replacement of emphasis mark... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W8Jhzfk68w

新゛ス゛テ゛ー゛ジ゛難゛し゛い゛よ゛お゛お゛お゛お゛お゛お゛お゛お゛【Fall Guys】

there would be no pronounce form for Kanji or double voiced sound mark....

[himorin]

@Hiromin, do you have examples from ラノベ?

I haven't collected exact pages, and don't remember when I've encountered... but I could search (with reading through books...)

[kidayasuo]

but I could search (with reading through books...)

oh, you don't need to. no rush. If you happened to encounter examples, please post them here. thanks!