AppleScript and Non-Roman Script Systems
A script system is a collection of system software facilities that allow for the visual representation of a particular writing system. Script systems include Roman, Japanese, Hebrew, Greek, and Thai. Each script system has a corresponding script code, a constant used, for example, to identify the script system in which some text was prepared. AppleScript and the Scriptable Text Editor can handle text prepared in a variety of script systems, provided the appropriate software is installed on your computer.A character in an AppleScript string or a Scriptable Text Editor document takes up either 1 byte or 2 bytes, depending on the script system the character belongs to. Thus, the size in bytes of a text object may differ from the number of characters it contains.
AppleScript honors the script codes of characters as much as possible when comparing them. This means that characters from different script systems may represent different characters and may be of unequal length even though their character codes are the same.