Proposals for Additional Latin Characters in
Unicode
NEWS ABOUT LATIN UNICODE PROPOSALS
8/30/06 Good
news: the Unicode Technical Committee has accepted all the proposed
characters. They will appear in Unicode
5.1, assuming they are accepted by the ballot process for inclusion in
ISO-10646. This page will remain for
archival purposes since I am not aware of any further ancient Roman characters
that need to be proposed.
7/16/06 Draft
of proposal for additional Roman characters posted
(PDF file, 2 megabytes due to large number of scanned examples). Comments needed by July 30 so that the
proposal can be considered at the August 8 meeting of the Unicode Technical
Committee. These are mainly characters
of interest to epigraphers (centurial sign, I longa, etc.). You can skip the first two pages, which are a
cover sheet.
6/29/06 The
proposal to Unicode for Roman weight and coin symbols was generally well
received at the May meeting of Unicode Technical Committee, but some of the
committee members had questions about the advisability of encoding one character
that has many forms that differ greatly from each other. I have prepared a
paper that addresses this issue; comments welcome.
6/13/06 A
paper discussing issues relating to Roman numerals in Unicode
has been posted; comments are welcome!
The discussion in this document may lead to three new characters to be
proposed.
5/8/06 The
final draft of the proposal for Roman weight and coin symbols is now posted here. This has
been submitted to the Unicode Technical Committee for consideration at their
May meeting.
4/18/06 Version
4 of the list of Latin characters posted; many
changes and additions.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND RATIONALE
Although most
characters that are needed for classical Latin are already in Unicode, some are
not. These are mainly characters needed
by epigraphers and numismatists, some of which may occur in literary texts
also.
It is important
for Latinists to work to get the characters we need encoded now. It may not be as easy in the future to get
characters added as it is at the present time.
Greek is in very good shape thanks to the work done by the TLG staff;
they carefully analyzed the texts in their database and submitted successful
proposals for the characters that needed to be encoded. Latinists need to do this same work.
I have been
involved with computers and font issues since the mid-1980s, particularly as
they relate to the needs of scholars.
Since no one else has undertaken this work, and since it really needs to
be done, I have decided to tackle it. I
have a master’s degree in Latin but am not a professional epigrapher or
numismatist, so I welcome input from those who know more about these fields
than I do.
ENCODING PRINCIPLES
·
idiosyncratic characters (used infrequently by one author)
are normally not good candidates for encoding
·
characters whose function or meaning is not understood will
not meet with Unicode approval
·
ligatures of existing characters are not encoded
·
characters that can be made up of existing letters and
combining accents (precomposed combinations) will not be added under any
circumstances
·
if a character already exists in Unicode that might do the
job, we need either to adopt it or show why it is not adequate
·
characters that are simply differently shaped variants of
existing characters are normally not encoded (exceptions may occur; email me
with any such questions)
·
evidence must be supplied to show the character in use. The best evidence is scans of printed texts,
backed up as appropriate by scans of manuscripts or photos of coins or
inscriptions.
·
monograms on coins are a difficult issue, and I don’t think
I can deal with them now (maybe later)
PROCESS
Right now I
anticipate two proposals. The first one
will cover monetary signs (denarius, sestertius, etc.). These are very important, easy to document,
and should not be controversial. If at
all possible, I would like to get this one ready for the May meeting of the
Unicode Technical Committee, which means it should be done by the end of
April. I’ve already written a draft
which I will post here as soon as it is a bit more polished. A second proposal will cover all additional
characters and may be submitted in the fall.
HOW TO HELP WITH THIS PROJECT
If you know of
characters needed by Latinists that are missing from Unicode, please do the
following:
·
read the “Encoding Principles” in the section above
·
read the list of Latin characters
that are already known
·
email me with any comments on
characters in the list or characters to be added
·
if you have characters to be added, it will be most helpful
if you can supply evidence to be used in the proposal (scans of books or clear
photos of coins/inscriptions)
·
to see examples of well-prepared, successful proposals to
Unicode, look at the University of California website where the TLG proposals are
archived
❧ GRÁTIÁS
MAXIMÁS OMNIBVS ☙
UPDATE
HISTORY
8/30/06 this
page moved to archival status
7/16/06 proposal
for additional characters posted
6/29/06 discussion
about characters with many different glyph variants posted
6/13/06 discussion
about Roman numerals in Unicode posted
5/08/06 final
version of the Unicode proposal for weights and money posted
4/23/06 first
public version of the official Unicode proposal for weights and money posted;
now archived here.
4/18/06 version
4 of the character list posted; version 3 is archived here.
4/10/06 version
3 of the character list posted; version 2 is archived here.
3/29/06: first
version of this page posted, along with version 2 (first public version) of the
character list.
Last updated
July 16, 2006