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L2/02-314R - SC2/WG2 N2512

PROPOSAL SUMMARY FORM

A. Administrative
1.Title:Proposal to add the Greek Capital Lunate Sigma Symbol to the UCS
2. Requester's name:
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae Project (University of California, Irvine)
3. Requester type:
Expert contribution
4. Submission date:
2002-8-21
5. Requester's reference:
6a. Completion
This is a complete proposal.
6b. More information to be provided?
No.

B. Technical - General
1a. New Script? Name?
No.
1b. Addition of character(s) to existing block? Name?
Yes. Greek (proposed position: U+03F9)
2. Number of characters in proposal:
One
3. Proposed category:A
4. Proposed Level of Implementation:
Level 1 noncombining character
5a. Character name provided?
Yes.
5b. Character name in accordance with guidelines:
Yes.
5c. Character shape reviewable?
Yes
6a. Who will provide the appropriate computerized font for publishing the standard?
TLG Project6b. Fonts currently available.
Glyph exists in a number of existing Greek fonts e.g. Monotype Porson.
6c. Font format:
True Type
7a. Are references (to other character sets, dictionaries, descriptive texts etc.) provided?
Yes (see below)
7b. Are published examples of use of proposed character attached?
Yes.
8. Does the proposal address other aspects of character data processing?
No.

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 Project has been in contact with a great number of experts in the field of Classics
including textual criticism, papyrology, epigraphy, numismatics and historical linguistics.
3. Information on the user community for the proposed character:
Scholarly community and individuals interested in Greek literature.
4. The context of use for the proposed character:Common in extant Greek texts.
5. Is the proposed character in current use by the user community?
Yes. Character is present in various editions of Greek texts and used extensively.
6. After giving due considerations to the principles in Principles and Procedures document,
must the proposed character be entirely in the BMP?
Yes.
6b. Rationale provided?
Contemporary use, keeping character together with other Greek characters.
7. Should the proposed character be kept together in a contiguous range (rather than beingscattered)?
Small Letter Lunate Sigma is already present in UTS as 03F2. Greek Capital Lunate Sigma
Symbol should follow as codepoint 03F9.
8. Can the proposed character be considered a presentation form of an existing
character or character sequence?
No.
9. Can the proposed character be encoded using a composed character sequence of either
existing characters or other proposed characters?
No.
10. Can the proposed character be considered to be similar (in appearanceor function) to an existing character?
Similar but not identical to 0043 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C
11a. Does the proposal include use of combining characters and/or use of compositesequences?
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Proposal1
Greek Capital Lunate Sigma is a widely used version of the Greek letter sigma, employedover many centuries and in many contexts (e.g. epigraphical, papyrological, moderntypesetting).
Greek Small Lunate Sigma is already present in Unicode Standard 3.2 and has thecodepoint 03F2. The lowercase lunate sigma is conventionally written as a distinct
character from the uppercase character (see Example 1 below) which is currently notpresent in the Unicode Standard. In some cases both types of sigma—lunate and nonlunate—may be required in the same text. Examples 2 and 3 below show modern printed
editions which employ both types of sigma in the same text.
Therefore the addition of the uppercase character is necessary for the correct and accuraterepresentation of ancient and medieval Greek texts. It is also necessary in order tocomplement the Greek Small Lunate Sigma which already exists in the UnicodeStandard.

Bibliography
Featherstone, J.M., Theodore Metochites’ Poems to “Himself” (Vienna, 2000)
Haralambous, Y. “Guidelines and Suggested Amendments to the Greek Unicode Tables”
presented at 21st International Unicode Conference (Dublin, 2002)
Jeffery, L.H., The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (Oxford, 1961)
Larfeld, W., Handbuch der griechischen Epigraphik 2.2. Die attischen Inschriften(Leipzig, 1902)
Liddell, H.G., Scott R. & Jones, H.S., Greek English Lexicon with a Supplement 9th ed.
(Oxford, 1968)
Smyth, H.W., Greek Grammar (Harvard Univ.Press, 1920)
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) CD-ROM E (University of California, Irvine, 1999)
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) Website, http://www.tlg.uci.edu/ (University ofCalifornia, Irvine, 2002)

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The following document was created by the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae Project® (TLG®) at theUniversity of California, Irvine. The TLG is a digital library containing more than 10,000 Greek literarytexts from Homer to the end of Byzantium in AD 1453. It is a major research tool used by thousands ofscholars and students of Greek worldwide. The TLG works exclusively from printed modern scholarly
editions. In preparation for this proposal, extensive research was conducted to identify and document theuse of the Lunate Sigma in Greek text editions.

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Greek Capital Letter Lunate Sigma2

CU+03F9 Greek Capital Letter Lunate Sigma Symbol

Example 1Aëtius Med., Iatricosum liber i. Chapter P

Olivieri, A., Aëtii Amideni libri medicinales i-iv (Teubner, Leipzig, 1935) 129Example 2Synesius Phil., Hymni. Hymn 1 line 12Dell’Era, A., Sinesio di Cirene. Inni (Tumminelli, Rome, 1969) 7

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Approximately 1,500 occurances of this character in the TLG corpus.

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Example 3a
Theodorus Metochites, Carmina XIV-XX, Poem 17 line 319

Featherstone, J.M., Theodore Metochites’ Poems to “Himself” (Vienna, 2000) 86
Example 3b
Theodorus Metochites, Carmina XIV-XX, Poem 19 line 44

Featherstone, J.M., Theodore Metochites’ Poems to “Himself” (Vienna, 2000) 114

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