In this series, I have been examining Unicode character names, Adobe-Japan1 CIDs, standard glyph names (Production Names) for name-keyed fonts, and Glyphs NiceNames, etc. All of these harbor some sort of “ambiguity.” There are many aspects of the world of fonts that cannot be easily categorized, and font engineering requires constant work to address exceptions that continually arise.

Fonts are inseparable from characters, and characters reflect language. Language is not logically designed; it has absorbed the culture, history, and chaotic accumulation of human activity as it has unfolded over time. Consequently, when we try to fit it into a standardized framework, there are inevitably parts that fall outside its boundaries.

Giving things names is nothing more than an attempt to abstract them and organize them in an orderly manner. The confusion arising from the overlapping layers of multiple naming systems surrounding characters and glyphs could perhaps be described as the trail of our neverending struggle to wrestle with the chaos of characters.

(mm)