SC2/WG2 N2560
L2/02-xxx
2002-12-06

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2/WG 2
PROPOSAL SUMMARY FORM TO ACCOMPANY SUBMISSIONSFOR ADDITIONS TO THE REPERTOIRE OF ISO/IEC 10646 / UNICODE

A. Administrative
1. Title:

Proposal for Encoding Additional Cyrillic Characters for
Siberian Yupik

2. Requesters’ names:

SIL International (contacts: Jim Brase, Peter Constable)

3. Requester type:

Expert contribution

4. Submission date:

2002-12-06

5. Requester’s reference(if applicable):
6a. Completion:

This is a complete proposal.

6b. More information tobe provided

No

B. Technical—General
1a. New script? Name?
No.
1b. Addition of characters to existing block? Name?
Yes: Cyrillic / Cyrillic Supplement.
2. Number of characters2
3. Proposed category
Category A
4. Proposed level of implementation and rationale
Level 1.
5a. Character names included in proposal?
Yes.
5b. Character names in accordance with guidelines?
Yes.
5c. Character shapes attached in a reviewable form?
Yes.

6a. Who will provide computerized font?
SIL International
6b. Font currently available?
Yes.
6c. Font format?
TrueType
7a. Are references (to other character sets, dictionaries, descriptive texts, etc) provided?
Yes.
7b. Are published examples (such as samples from newspapers, magazines, or other sources) of useof proposed characters attached?
Yes.
8. Does the proposal address other aspects of character data processing?
These characters have no unusual behaviors in relation to text processing, but are comparable to otherCyrillic alphabetic characters.

C. Technical—Justification
1. Has this proposal for addition of character(s) been submitted before?
No.
2. Contact with the user community?
Yes, with regards to the Siberian Yupik community.
No, with regards to the Nivkh community.
3. Information on the user community for the proposed characters (for example: size,demographics, information technology use, or publishing use) is included?
Our principle interest is the Siberian Yupik language of Alaska and Eastern Siberia. It has also cometo our attention that the proposed characters are used by the Nivkh language on Sakhalin Island.
Although we know little of Nivkh, we include some references to it here so that the proposedcharacters can be evaluated in their broader context.
The total population of the Siberian Yupik people is about 2000. These are divided between Alaska(1100 people in the villages of Gambell and Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island) and the tip of theSiberian Chukchi Peninsula (900 people). Of those in Alaska, about 1050 still speak the language.
They use a Roman alphabet. In Siberia, about 300 still speak the language. They use a Cyrillic basedalphabet and constitute the primary user community for the proposed characters.
The Nivkh people total 4400 to 4700 people on Sakhalin Island and the Amur River valley. Twodifferent sources estimate either 400 or 1100 speakers remain, principally on Sakhalin Island.
3b. Reference
For Siberian Yupik:
Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks
http://www.uaf.edu/anlc/langs/sy.html
SIL Ethnologue: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ESSFor Nivkh:
The Languages of Russia, University of Groningen,
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~bergmann/russia/languages/nivkh.htm
Ethnologue.com, SIL International, http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=NIV
4a. The context of use for the proposed characters (type of use; common or rare)?
Up until 1989, used in government publications of the U.S.S.R., including linguistic descriptions andeducational materials. Financial support for linguistic research and publishing by the Soviet Union
ended in 1989.
Currently in use for publications of Scripture and related materials.
4b.Reference
Personal correspondence with Dave Shinen, linguist from SIL International working in Siberian
Yupik on St. Lawrence Is., Alaska.
See also samples in Section E. of this proposal.
5. Are the proposed characters in current use by the user community?
Yes.
5b. Where?
Eastern Siberia.
5c. Reference
See samples in Section E of this proposal.

6. After giving due considerations to the principles in N 1352 must the proposed characters be
entirely in the BMP?
Yes.
6b. Rationale
Living script.
6c. Reference
N/A.
7. Should the proposed characters be kept together in a contiguous range (rather than beingscattered)?
They do not have to be contiguous but should be in the same block.
8. Can any of the proposed characters be considered a presentation form of an existing character orcharacter sequence?
No.
9a. Can any of the proposed character(s) be considered to be similar (in appearance or function) toan existing character?
No.
10a. Does the proposal include use of combining characters and/or use of composite sequences (seeclause 4.11 and 4.13 in ISO/IEC 10646-1)?
No.

10b. If YES, is a rationale for such use provided?
N/A.
10c. Reference
N/A.
10d. Is a list of composite sequences and their corresponding glyph images (graphic symbols)
provided?
N/A.
10e. Reference
N/A.
11. Does the proposal contain characters with any special properties such as control function orsimilar semantics? If YES, describe in detail (include attachment if necessary).
N/A.

D. Proposed Characters
The following two characters are proposed:

Name
CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER GHE WITH DESCENDERCYRILLIC SMALL LETTER GHE WITH DESCENDER

Representative glyphÂ
âUnicode character properties for these characters should be the same as those for other comparable
Cyrillic alphabetic characters. Of course, these are an upper- / lower-case pair, and so the relevant casemapping for each points to the other.
Default collating order:
In Siberian Yupik, these characters immediately follow the CYRILLIC (CAPITAL/SMALL) LETTER
GHE, U+0413/U+0433. (Based on phone conversation with Dave Shinen, linguist from SIL International
working on the Siberian Yupik language.)
We have no definite information on the collating order for Nivkh. In the table on the web site
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~bergmann/russia/alphabets/nivkh.htm, it is positioned to the right of the CYRILLIC(CAPITAL/SMALL) LETTER GHE WITH STROKE, U+0492/U+0493. But in the table on the site
http://ee.www.ee/transliteration/pdf/Nivkh.pdf, it is listed immediately after CYRILLIC(CAPITAL/SMALL) LETTER GHE, U+0413/U+0433 (as in Siberian Yupik), and before CYRILLIC(CAPITAL/SMALL) LETTER GHE WITH STROKE, U+0492/U+0493.

Usage of these characters is illustrated in the following samples:

E. Samples
Menoyìikov, G. A. 1983. SLOVARÎ ÏSKIMOSSKO-RUSSKIJ I RUSSKOÏSKIMOSSKIJ. Leningrad: Prosveìenie.
(Menovshchikov, G. A. 1983. Slovar' ekimossko-russkiy i russkio-eskimosskiy. [Dictionary eskimo-russian and russian-eskimo] Leningrad:
Prosveshchenie.)Menoyìikov, G. A. & N. B. Vaxtin. 1983. ÏSKIMOSSKIJ QZYK. Leningrad:
Prosveìenie.
(Menovshchikov, G. A., and N. B. Vakhtin. 1983. Eskimosskii iazyk.
[Eskimo Language] Leningrad: Prosveshchenie.)Ðpigyt Mumiêçyêtytlíð & Uiklif Bajbel Translzjtors-etílu. 1998. PiniâæUèipaç Iisus-myè Ioann-ym Ápçá. Gambell, Alaska.
(Yupik translators and Wycliffe Bible Translators. 1998. The Good
News About Jesus As Told By John. Gambell, Alaska.)

We do not have any literature in Nivkh. Some information on this language and alphabet, includingreferences to the proposed characters, can be found on the following web sites:
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~bergmann/russia/alphabets/nivkh.htm
http://www.raipon.org/Web_Database/nivkh.html
http://www.eki.ee/letter/chardata.cgi?lang=_nivkh&script=cyrillic
http://members.tripod.com/~anttikoski/eng_pala.html
http://ee.www.ee/transliteration/pdf/Nivkh.pdf
In both Nivhk and Siberian Yupik texts from various sources, we have encountered two designs of thecharacter: one with a hooked descender, and one with a pointed descender. (See the Siberian Yupik
samples included and also Nivkh samples at URLs mentioned above.) We consider these to betypographic variants of the same character.