The question asked by someone internally was:

Are East Asian script languages considered to be complex script languages?

Well, I suppose it would depend on both one's definition of "East Asian script languages" and "complex script languages", really.

If I use the Microsoft definition of Complex then I am only thinking of ones that require special handling when rendered by Uniscribe.

And if I use the general Microsoft definition of East Asian to not include South Asian or Southeast Asian, then I cannot say YES on the basis of Thai or Vietnamese.

However, one has to consider:

  • Uyghur
  • Traditional Mongolian
  • Old Hangul

and then say that the answer is YES unless you plan to rephrase your question. :-)

Usually people asking the question will rephrase at that point, as they were often thinking only on CJK (Chinese/Japanese/Korean) when they asked, but I remind them of old Hangul, which is obviously quite Korean. And even while a Korean colleague noted it wasn't a mainstream scenario, it was also noted to be something even high school kids knew about and knew.

So the answer is still YES unless the question is reframed yet again!