Re: Ligature support

[Stefan Kangas]

tomas@tuxteam.de writes:

>> We do pass the language to HarfBuzz when we think we know it, but the
>> problem is Emacs itself has no good notion of the "current language".
>
> This is what I was pointing at. I don't think this is a problem which
> can be solved in general. You have homographs (words that write the
> same) within one language, you have them across languages.

Right, detecting a language is hard and is AFAIK discussed at the
frontlines of language technology.  We don't need to attempt that, I
think.  Other software just let you set the current language or
languages manually.

I would suggest a variable `current-language' (or something) that
controls this on a buffer level.

In word processors, you can indicate the current language down to the
individual word or perhaps even character level.  Perhaps we could also
have a text property for it?