ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N2597
2003-06-25
Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set
International Organization for Standardization
Organisation Internationale de Normalisationеждународная организация по стандартизации
Doc Type: Working Group Document
Title:
Proposal to encode one combining character in the UCS
Source: Lithuanian Standards Board (LST)
Status:Correspondent Member Contribution
Action:For consideration by JTC1/SC2/WG2 and UTC
Date:
2003-06-25

1

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2/WG 2
PROPOSAL SUMMARY FORM TO ACCOMPANY SUBMISSIONSFOR ADDITIONS TO THE REPERTOIRE OF ISO/IEC 106461
Please fill all the sections A, B and C below.
(Please read Principles and Procedures Document for guidelines and details before filling this form.)
See http://www.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/summaryform.html for latest Form.
See http://www.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/principles.html for latest Principles and Procedures document.
See http://www.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/roadmaps.html for latest roadmaps.

A. Administrative
1. Title:_____Proposal to encode one combining character in the UCS_____
2. Requester's name: _________Lithuanian Standards Board (LST) ______________________________________
3. Requester type (Member body/Liaison/Individual contribution):
Correspondent Member _________________
4. Submission date:2003-06-25______
5. Requester's reference (if applicable): _____________________________________________________________
6. (Choose one of the following:)
This is a complete proposal:_______Yes_____
or,More information will be provided later:_______________
B. Technical - General
1. (Choose one of the following:)
a. This proposal is for a new script (set of characters):______________
Proposed name of script: _________________________________________________________.
b. The proposal is for addition of character(s) to an existing block:_______Yes____Name of the existing block:____Combining Diacritical Marks _______________________
2. Number of characters in proposal:________1______
3. Proposed category (see section II, Character Categories):
Combining______
4. Proposed Level of Implementation (1, 2 or 3) (see clause 14, ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000):________3______Is a rationale provided for the choice?
______________
If Yes, reference: ________________________________________________________________
5. Is a repertoire including character names provided?
_______Yes____a. If YES, are the names in accordance with the 'character naming guidelines
in Annex L of ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000?
_______Yes____b. Are the character shapes attached in a legible form suitable for review?
_______Yes____6. Who will provide the appropriate computerized font (ordered preference: True Type, or PostScript format) for
publishing the standard? True Type, Vilnius University, Lithuania_________________________________
If available now, identify source(s) for the font (include address, e-mail, ftp-site, etc.) and indicate the tools
used: __Mr. Mindaugas Strockis, (Mindaugas.Strockis@flf.vu.lt), FontLab___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7. References:a. Are references (to other character sets, dictionaries, descriptive texts etc.) provided? _______Yes____b. Are published examples of use (such as samples from newspapers, magazines, or other sources)of proposed characters attached?
_______Yes____8. Special encoding issues:
Does the proposal address other aspects of character data processing (if applicable) such as input,presentation, sorting, searching, indexing, transliteration etc. (if yes please enclose information)?
_The character behaves just like the existing combining characters________________________________
9. Additional Information:
Submitters are invited to provide any additional information about Properties of the proposed Character(s) or Scriptthat will assist in correct understanding of and correct linguistic processing of the proposed character(s) or script.
Examples of such properties are: Casing information, Numeric information, Currency information, Display behaviour
information such as line breaks, widths etc., Combining behaviour, Spacing behaviour, Directional behaviour, Default
Collation behaviour, relevance in Mark Up contexts, Compatibility equivalence and other Unicode normalization
related information. See the Unicode standard at http://www.unicode.org for such information on other scripts. Also
see http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/UnicodeCharacterDatabase.html and associated Unicode Technical
Reports for information needed for consideration by the Unicode Technical Committee for inclusion in the UnicodeStandard.
1Form number: N2352-F (Original 1994-10-14; Revised 1995-01, 1995-04, 1996-04, 1996-08, 1999-03, 2001-05, 2001-09)

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C. Technical - Justification
1. Has this proposal for addition of character(s) been submitted before?
_____No_______
If YES explain _________________________________________________________________________
2. Has contact been made to members of the user community (for example: National Body,user groups of the script or characters, other experts, etc.)?
______________
If YES, with whom? ______________________________________________________________
If YES, available relevant documents: ________________________________________________
3. Information on the user community for the proposed characters (for example:
size, demographics, information technology use, or publishing use) is included?
_______Yes____Reference: Lithuanian Academic community __________________________________________________
4. The context of use for the proposed characters (type of use; common or rare)
Phonetic transcription(infrequent, educational use
Reference: ___________________________________________________________________________
5. Are the proposed characters in current use by the user community?
_______Yes____If YES, where? Reference: In Lithuania, in linguistic literature, dictionaries __________________________
6. After giving due considerations to the principles in Principles and Procedures document (a WG 2 standingdocument) must the proposed characters be entirely in the BMP?
_______Yes____If YES, is a rationale provided?
_______Yes____If YES, reference: ________________________________________________________
7. Should the proposed characters be kept together in a contiguous range (rather than being scattered)? _______
8. Can any of the proposed characters be considered a presentation form of an existing
character or character sequence?
_____No_______
If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
______________
If YES, reference: ________________________________________________________
9. Can any of the proposed characters be encoded using a composed character sequence of either
existing characters or other proposed characters?
_____No_______
If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
______________
If YES, reference:______________
10. Can any of the proposed character(s) be considered to be similar (in appearanceor function) to an existing character?
_____No_______
If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
______________
If YES, reference: ________________________________________________________
11. Does the proposal include use of combining characters and/or use of composite sequences(see clauses 4.12 and 4.14 in ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000)?
______________
If YES, is a rationale for such use provided?
______________
If YES, reference: _______________________________________________________Is a list of composite sequences and their corresponding glyph images (graphic symbols)
provided?
______________
If YES, reference: _______________________________________________________
12. Does the proposal contain characters with any special properties such ascontrol function or similar semantics?
_____No_______
If YES, describe in detail (include attachment if necessary)______________
13. Does the proposal contain any Ideographic compatibility character(s)?
_____No_______
If YES, is the equivalent corresponding unified ideographic character(s) identified? ____________
If YES, reference: ________________________________________________________

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To properly describe the accentuation system of the Lithuanian dialects, it is necessary to add theCOMBINING ZIGZAG ABOVE to UCS:U+????

COMBINING ZIGZAG ABOVE

Substantiation of the COMBINING ZIGZAG ABOVE in UCS
1. Meaning and place of the COMBINING ZIGZAG ABOVE in the accentuation system of theLithuanian language
There are three main accents in the accentuation system of the Lithuanian language: acute, circumflex andgrave. Beside these, four variants of the main accents are used in Lithuanian dialects. Only one of theseaccent variants has no corresponding sign in the UCS.
1.1. The Lithuanian language has two main tones for long syllables: a rising tone and a falling tone. The
stressed short syllable, even though it has no tone, is marked by a corresponding grave accent; therefore
there are three main accents: the acute, the circumflex and grave.
Note on Lithuanian circumflex. The circumflex accent in Lithuanian has a wavy shape, and looks
identical to tilde (compare the polytonic Greek circumflex, perispomeni). The UCS combining tilde sign
therefore can be used as the Lithuanian circumflex. The angled Latin circumflex has a different meaning
in Lithuanian (see 1.2.1 below).
1.1.1. The falling tone is marked by an acute accent (corresponding to COMBINING ACUTE ACCENTin UCS):
Lithuanian language

UCS

Description

Name of accent

Name

Code

Stressed syllable withfalling tone

Acute

COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT

0301

Sign

1.1.2. The rising tone is marked by a circumflex accent (corresponding to COMBINING TILDE in UCS):
Lithuanian language

UCS

Description

Name of accent

Name

Code

Stressed syllable withrising tone

Circumflex

COMBINING TILDE

0303

Sign

1.1.3. The short stressed syllable is marked by a grave accent (corresponding to COMBINING GRAVEACCENT in UCS):

Lithuanian language

UCS

Description

Name of accent

Name

Code

Stressed short syllable

Grave

COMBINING GRAVE ACCENT

0300

Sign

1.2. Accentuation of the Lithuanian dialects. In addition to the aforementioned tones, four further
variants for dialects are distinguished: broken, middle, abrupt and general accents, which are marked asfollows.
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1.2.1. The broken tone is marked by a broken accent (corresponding to COMBINING CIRCUMFLEX
ACCENT in UCS):
Lithuanian language

UCS

Description

Name of accent

Name

Code

Stressed syllable withbroken tone

Broken accent

COMBINING CIRCUMFLEX
ACCENT

0302

Sign

1.2.2. The middle tone is marked by a middle accent (corresponding to COMBINING VERTICAL
TILDE in UCS):
Lithuanian language
Description

UCS
Name of accent

Stressed syllable with Middle accent
middle tone

Name

Code

COMBINING VERTICAL TILDE

030E

Sign

1.2.3. The abrupt tone is marked by an abrupt accent with a “zigzag” form (there is no corresponding
mark in UCS, but it could be named “COMBINING ZIGZAG ABOVE”):
Lithuanian language
Description

UCS
Name of accent

Stressed syllable with Abrupt accent
abrupt tone

Name

Code

COMBINING ZIGZAG ABOVE????

Sign

1.2.4. In those cases where the tone is almost indefinable and it is difficult to define it precisely, thegeneral stress is used, represented by a vertical short line (corresponding to COMBINING VERTICAL
LINE ABOVE in UCS):
Lithuanian language

UCS

Description

Name of accent

Name

Code

Stressed syllable, tone
unspecified

General stress

COMBINING VERTICAL LINE
ABOVE

030D

Sign

1.3. Summary of accentuation system of the Lithuanian language. For marking all tones of theLithuanian language and its dialects, seven accents marks are needed. Three of them are main accents, andthe other four variants:
MAIN ACCENTS

VARIANTS OF ACCENTS

Sign

Sign

CodeName

CodeName

0301

COMBINING ACUTE
ACCENT

0302

COMBINING
CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT

0303

COMBINING TILDE????

COMBINING ZIGZAG
ABOVE

0300

COMBINING GRAVEACCENT

030E

COMBINING VERTICALTILDE

030D

COMBINING VERTICALLINE ABOVE

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1.4. UCS lacks only one combining mark of this system: there is no COMBINING ZIGZAG ABOVE,
which takes this form:. It is absolutely necessary because it marks the abrupt tone, which ischaracteristic of the northern-eastern Lithuanian dialects (in the surroundings of Biržai, Kupiškis,Anykščiai and other towns). In these dialects the abrupt tone replaces the falling tone in certain positions:on long vowels and especially on monophthongised diphthongs at the ends of words. A syllable bearing
this tone is pronounced rather short, with an abrupt stop of the voice, as if chopping off the remainder ofthe syllable.
2. Usage of the ZIGZAG ABOVE in linguistic literature
The abrupt accent is represented by the mark of ZIGZAG in the principal standard works of Lithuanian
dialectology, university student manuals and chrestomathies of the dialects, such as:(1) GRINAVECKIENĖ, ELENA, MORKŪNAS, KAZYS (eds), et al. 1970: Lietuvių kalbos tarmės.
Chrestomatija, Vilnius: Mintis. 518 pp. (The Lithuanian Dialects. A Chrestomathy)(2) MORKŪNAS, KAZYS (ed), et al. 1982: Lietuvių kalbos atlasas 2. Fonetika, Vilnius: Mokslas. 148
pp. + 112 maps. (Lithuanian Language Atlas. Vol. 2. Phonetics)(3) ZINKEVIČIUS, ZIGMAS 1966: Lietuvių dialektologija. Lyginamoji tarmių fonetika ir morfologija,Vilnius: Mintis. 542 pp. + 75 maps. (Lithuanian Dialectology. Comparative Phonetics and Morphology of
Lithuanian Dialects)(4) ZINKEVIČIUS, ZIGMAS 1978: Lietuvių dialektologija. Vilnius: Mokslas. 192 p. (LithuanianDialectology)
3. Samples of usage of the ZIGZAG ABOVE
From (1), p. 277:

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From (2), p. 48:

From (3), p. 37:

From (4), p. 165:

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