JTC1/SC2/WG2 N2546
Doc:

L2/02-315R
L2/02-315R2

PROPOSAL SUMMARY FORM

A. Administrative
1. Title
Proposal for encoding Greek Metrical Symbols in the UCS
2. Requester's name
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae Project (University of California, Irvine)
3. Requester type
Expert contribution
4. Submission date:
2002-11-07
5. Requester's reference
6. Completion
This is a complete proposal.

B. Technical - General
1. The proposal is for addition of character(s) to an existing block. Name of the existing
block:
Miscellaneous Symbols
2. Number of characters in proposal:
9 characters (2692-269A)
3. Proposed category
Category A
4. Proposed Level of Implementation (1, 2 or 3):
Level 15a. Character names provided?
Yes.
5b. Character names in accordance with guidelines
Yes.
5c. Character shapes reviewable?
Yes
6a. Who will provide the appropriate computerized font for publishing the standard?
David Perry and TLG Project6b. Font currently available?
Yes.
6c. Font format
True Type
7a. Are references (to other character sets, dictionaries, descriptive texts etc.) provided?
Yes.
7b. Are published examples of use (such as samples from newspapers, magazines, or othersources) of proposed characters attached?
Yes.
8. Does the proposal address other aspects of character data processing?
No.

1

C. Technical - Justification
1. Has this proposal for addition of character(s) been submitted before?
No.
2. Has contact been made to members of the user community?
Yes. The TLG has been in contact with a great number of experts. Several versions of thisproposal have been posted online and received extensive comments by members of theprofession.
3. Information on the user community for the proposed charactersScholarly community in the general area of literature.
4. The context of use for the proposed characters (type of use; common or rare)
Common in publications and studies related to ancient and modern poetry, meter, and music.
5. Are the proposed characters in current use by the user community?
Yes. Characters are present in various scholarly discussions of ancient and modern literary texts.
General references provided in attached bibliography.
6. After giving due considerations to the principles in Principles and Procedures document,
must the proposed characters be entirely in the BMP?
Yes.
7. Should the proposed characters be kept together in a contiguous range (rather than beingscattered)?
Yes.
8. Can any of the proposed characters be considered a presentation form of an existing
character or character sequence?
No.
9. Can any of the proposed characters be encoded using a composed character sequence ofeither existing characters or other proposed characters?
Yes. However, existing characters produce unworkable results.
10. Can any of the proposed character(s) be considered to be similar (in appearance orfunction) to an existing character?
No.
11a. Does the proposal include use of combining characters and/or use of composite
sequences?
No.
12. Does the proposal contain characters with any special properties such as
control function or similar semantics?
No.
13. Does the proposal contain any Ideographic compatibility character(s)?
No.

2Proposal
The ancient Greek metrical system was developed between the 8th and 4th centuries B.C.
and has been preserved on ancient papyri and codices. A standard set of non-combining
metrical symbols is found both in ancient texts as well as modern editions and studies of
Greek and Roman poetry. The use of these symbols, however, extends beyond ancient
literature and is, in fact, present in editions of contemporary poetry and discussions ofmodern works of literature. Therefore these characters are extensively used in modern
typography and as such they should properly be encoded in the Unicode Standard.
Two examples are presented below, one from a study on ancient Greek metrics, and one
from a discussion of modern English poetry.1

All possible non-stacking characters used in the Greek metrical notation are given in thetable Overview of Greek Metrical Notation below. There are a few other, rarely used,
symbols which are stacked versions of the characters also provided. The majority ofcharacters required for the representation of Greek meter are already present in UnicodeStandard 3.2. Nine (9) additional characters are proposed for inclusion.

1

Greek example taken from Der Neue Pauly Volume 8 (2000) 118; English example taken from Gummere,F.R., A Handbook of Poetics (Boston, 1892) 138.

3

Overview of Greek Metrical Notation
×NameAnceps⚒

Breve–Longum
Metrical Long Over
Short
Metrical Short OverLong
Metrical Long Over TwoShorts
Metrical Two Shorts
Over Long
Aeolian Basis
Metrical Two Shorts
JoinedBreve Combining withLongum
Catalexis indicator

⚓⚔⚕
⚖◯◯⚗̭

Unicode00D7CommentSimilar to 02D8, but 02D8 is positioned toohigh in the line.

2012 or 2013
Similar to 02D8 + 0305
Similar to 02D8 + 0332
Similar to 02D8 + 0305 + 02D8 + 0305
Similar to 02D8 + 0332 + 02D8 + 0332
25EF + 25EF
Similar to 02D8 + 02D8A second glyph variant may be encoded with2312 + 0323

02D8 + 0336
0020 + 032D

Proposed separately as a punctuation
character⋮

Tricolon||||||

Word End Indicator
Period End Indicator
Stanza End Indicator
Poem End Indicator

007C
2016
007C + 007C + 007C
2297

Hiatus<superscript> 0048

ʃDovetail0283 or possibly 222B

~Responsion

007E

Anaclasis

00A8

Ictus

0301

αα͡

Bridge0361⚘⚙⚚

Metrical Triseme

⊗H

̈

2

Metrical Tetraseme
Metrical Pentaseme

See Raven (1965) 13

4

The character ⌇ may also be used torepresent a hiatus2 the Unicode of which is2307.

Bibliography
Gummere, F.R., A Handbook of Poetics (Boston, 1892)
Maas, P., Greek Metre. Tr. Lloyd-Jones, H. (Oxford, 1962)
Parker, L.P.E., “Metre, Greek” in OCD3 (1996) 970
Pauly, A.F. von et al. (eds.), Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen
Altertumwissenschaft. (Stuttgart, 1856-1972)
Raven, D.S., Latin Metre: An Introduction (London, 1965)
West, M.L. “Metrik. IV Griechisch” in DNP 8 (2000) 115-122
West, M.L. Greek Metre (Oxford, 1982)

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Table of New Characters Proposed
Full documentation for the proposed characters available at:
http://www.tlg.uci.edu/Uni.prop.html

123456789⚒⚓⚔⚕
⚖⚗
⚘
⚙⚚

Name
Metrical Breve Symbol

Unicode2692

Metrical Long Over Short Symbol

2693

Metrical Short Over Long Symbol

2694

Metrical Long Over Two Shorts Symbol

2695

Metrical Two Shorts Over Long Symbol

2696

Metrical Two Shorts Joined Symbol

2697

Metrical Triseme Symbol

2698

Metrical Tetraseme Symbol

2699

Metrical Pentaseme Symbol

269A

Comment

Character Properties“Symbol, other” (So).
Notes
Approximations of characters 2-6 may be created using characters in the Unicode Standard; however there
are several problems with these representations. For example,• they are visually inaccurate;• on occasion a character which is semantically one character may have to be encoded in such a way as
to make into two characters (e.g., Long over two Shorts);• it is necessary to occasionally stack metrical characters. So, for instance, it may be necessary to have
Two Shorts over Long stacked over an Anceps. This becomes extremely difficult to effect were theTwo Shorts over Long to be encoded as two separate characters.
• Further, in the specific case of the Double Short, to encode it with two Shorts would be visuallyconfusing as the same meter will often contain both Shorts and Double Shorts (e.g. aeolo-chori-ambic
and the dactylo-epitric).
Characters 7-9 cannot currently be encoded in Unicode.

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METRICAL CHARACTERS: CODE CHART
269

2⚒

3⚓

4⚔

5⚕

6⚖

7⚗

8⚘

9⚙

A⚚

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METRICAL CHARACTERS: NAME CHART
hex
2692
2693
2694
2695
2696
2697
2698
2699
269A

Name
METRICAL BREVEMETRICAL LONG OVER SHORTMETRICAL SHORT OVER LONGMETRICAL LONG OVER TWO SHORTS
METRICAL TWO SHORTS OVER LONGMETRICAL TWO SHORTS JOINEDMETRICAL TRISEMEMETRICAL TETRASEMEMETRICAL PENTASEME89