ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N2610
2003-08-24
Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set
International Organization for Standardization
Organisation Internationale de Normalisationеждународная организация по стандартизации

L2/03-282

Doc Type: Working Group Document
Title:
Final proposal for encoding the Glagolitic script in the UCS
Source: Michael Everson and Ralph Cleminson
Status:Expert Contribution
Action:For consideration by JTC1/SC2/WG2 and UTC
Date:
2003-08-24
This document is based on the proposal written by Joe Becker and published in UTR#3, and the proposal
written by Michael Everson in N1659, revised in N1931. It is a revision of our N2555, and contains the
proposal summary.

A. Administrative
1. Title
Final proposal for encoding the Glagolitic script in the UCS.
2. Requester’s nameMichael Everson and Ralph Cleminson
3. Requester type (Member body/Liaison/Individual contribution)
Individual contribution.
4. Submission date2003-08-24
5. Requester’s reference (if applicable)
N1659, N1931, N2555.
6. Choose one of the following:
6a. This is a complete proposal
Yes.
6b. More information will be provided later
No.

B. Technical -- General
1. Choose one of the following:
1a. This proposal is for a new script (set of characters)
Yes.
Proposed name of script
Glagolitic.
1b. The proposal is for addition of character(s) to an existing block
Yes, three.
1b. Name of the existing block
General Punctuation.
2. Number of characters in proposal
97 (94 + 3)
3. Proposed category (see section II, Character Categories)
Category B.1.
4a. Proposed Level of Implementation (1, 2 or 3) (see clause 14, ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000)
As an alphabetic script, Glagolitic requires Level 1.
4b. Is a rationale provided for the choice?
No.
4c. If YES, reference
5a. Is a repertoire including character names provided?

1

Yes.
5b. If YES, are the names in accordance with the character naming guidelines in Annex L of ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000?
Yes.
5c. Are the character shapes attached in a legible form suitable for review?
Yes.
6a. Who will provide the appropriate computerized font (ordered preference: True Type, or PostScript format) for
publishing the standard?
Michael Everson.
6b. If available now, identify source(s) for the font (include address, e-mail, ftp-site, etc.) and indicate the tools used:
Michael Everson, Fontographer.
7a. Are references (to other character sets, dictionaries, descriptive texts etc.) provided?
Yes, see bibliography below.
7b. Are published examples of use (such as samples from newspapers, magazines, or other sources) of proposedcharacters attached?
Yes.
8. 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)?
Yes, see below.
9. Submitters are invited to provide any additional information about Properties of the proposed Character(s) or
Script that 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 otherscripts.
Also
see
UnicodeCharacter
Database
http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/
UnicodeCharacterDatabase.html and associated Unicode Technical Reports for information needed for considerationby the Unicode Technical Committee for inclusion in the Unicode Standard.
Yes, see Unicode properties below.

C. Technical -- Justification
1. Has this proposal for addition of character(s) been submitted before? If YES, explain.
Yes, exploratory drafts in N1659, N1931, N2555.
2a. Has contact been made to members of the user community (for example: National Body, user groups of the scriptor characters, other experts, etc.)?
Yes.
2b. If YES, with whom?
Ralph Cleminson, Dr Hinko Muren (Slovenia), ISO/TC46/SC2, ISO/TC46/SC4
2c. If YES, available relevant documents
N/A
3. Information on the user community for the proposed characters (for example: size, demographics, information
technology use, or publishing use) is included?
Scholarly, ecclesiastical, and library communities.
4a. The context of use for the proposed characters (type of use; common or rare)
Originally used to write Old Church Slavonic, and used in parts of medieval and early modern Croatia for both secular andecclesiastical purposes.
4b. Reference
See below. ISO 6861:1996 is a coded character set for Glagolitic, as well as the bibliography below.
5a. Are the proposed characters in current use by the user community?
Yes.
5b. If YES, where?
By scholars, churchmen, and librarians.
6a. After giving due considerations to the principles in Principles and Procedures document (a WG 2 standing
document) must the proposed characters be entirely in the BMP?
Yes.
6b. If YES, is a rationale provided?
Yes.
6c. If YES, reference
Accordance with the Roadmap, and close relationship of Glagolitic and Cyrillic texts.
7. Should the proposed characters be kept together in a contiguous range (rather than being scattered)?

2

Yes, they should be encoded in a single block as presented here.
8a. Can any of the proposed characters be considered a presentation form of an existing character or character
sequence?
No.
8b. If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
8c. If YES, reference
9a. Can any of the proposed characters be encoded using a composed character sequence of either existing charactersor other proposed characters?
No.
9b. If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
9c. If YES, reference
10a. Can any of the proposed character(s) be considered to be similar (in appearance or function) to an existing
character?
No.
10b. If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
10c. If YES, reference
11a. Does the proposal include use of combining characters and/or use of composite sequences (see clauses 4.12 and4.14 in ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000)?
No.
11b. If YES, is a rationale for such use provided?
11c. If YES, reference
12a. Is a list of composite sequences and their corresponding glyph images (graphic symbols) provided?
No. Generic combining characters can occur with Glagolitic base forms.
12b. If YES, reference
13a. Does the proposal contain characters with any special properties such as control function or similar semantics?
No.
13b. If YES, describe in detail (include attachment if necessary)
14a. Does the proposal contain any Ideographic compatibility character(s)?
No.
14b. If YES, is the equivalent corresponding unified ideographic character(s) identified?
14c. If YES, reference

D. Proposal
User community
Glagolitic is considered to be the alphabet devised by St Cyril, probably in 862 CE, for his translation of
the the Scriptures and liturgical books into Slavonic. The Glagolitic inscriptions and manuscripts whichsurvive from the early period are relatively few in number, but of great philological importance. Amongst
the Slavs of the Eastern Rite, Glagolitic was subsequently supplanted by the alphabet now known as
Cyrillic (based on Greek uncials but following the order and function of the Glagolitic letters), which
probably arose in late ninth-century Bulgaria. In those parts of Croatia where a vernacular liturgy wasused, Glagolitic continued in use until modern times: the last Glagolitic missal was printed in Rome in1893 with a second edition in 1905. In these areas Glagolitic is still occasionally used as a decorativealphabet.

Structure
In the encoding Glagolitic is treated as a separate alphabet from Cyrillic, both because of its historicalprimacy and because in almost every case the shapes of the letters in the two alphabets are completely
dissimilar: the one can in no sense be regarded as a visual variant of the other. Glagolitic itself exists in
two styles, known as round and square. Round Glagolitic is the original style and more geographicallywidespread (though surviving examples are less numerous); square Glagolitic (and the cursive stylederived from it) was used in Croatia from the thirteenth century. There are a few documents written in astyle intermediate between the two. The letter-forms used in the charts are round Glagolitic, since a
number of characters found in this style are not represented in square Glagolitic, while the reverse (with3the exception of the last three characters in the table) is not the case.

Directionality
Like Cyrillic, the Glagolitic script is written in linear sequence from left to right with no contextual
modification of the letterforms.

Ordering
The ordering of the Glagolitic alphabet is largely derived from that of the Greek alphabet, though nearly
half the Glagolitic characters have no equivalent in Greek and not every Greek letter has its equivalent in
Glagolitic. Scholars cannot recover the original (Cyrillo-Methodian) alphabet, there being no extant
documents from this period; its content and order can nevertheless be reconstructed with reasonablecertainty on the basis of later abecedaria and a number of acrostics of extremely early origin. It should
however be recognised that the order of the alphabet as represented in the surviving documents is notentirely stable, particularly towards the end.

Variant Glyph Forms
Several of the letters have variant glyph forms. These are not given separate character codes here. In ISO
6861:1996 five variant forms are explicitly encoded, and were in N1659. Discussion with the convener of
ISO/SC4/WG2 indicated that in bibliographical contexts, probably most current use transliterates
Glagolitic into Cyrillic in any case, and it is suggested that the variant characters in ISO 6861:1996 be
unified with the basic letters.

Punctuation and diacritics
A number of punctuation characters are used in Glagolitic. Several of these are generic punctuation
characters: COMMA, FULL STOP, SEMICOLON (= GREEK QUESTION MARK), and MIDDLE DOT (= GREEK ANO
TELEIA) are used, and in edited texts quotation marks are used. Three unencoded punctuation marks havebeen observed, which have also been noted from time to time in Latin and other scripts. We believe theyshould be encoded in the General Punctuation block. They form a part of this proposal.
,
.
;
·
:
:·
·:
·:·
:·:

002C
002E
037E
0387
0589
10FB
2056
2058
2059

COMMA
FULL STOP(GREEK QUESTION MARKGREEK ANO TELEIAARMENIAN FULL STOPGEORGIAN PARAGRAPH SEPARATORTRIANGULAR COLONDIAMOND COLON
QUINTUPLE COLON

The punctuation mark SEMICOLON is used, flanking a letter on either side, to show the numeric use of theletter (Faulmann 1880). Glagolitic uses numerous diacritical marks, many of them in common with
Cyrillic. It is suggested that research on the use of these in both Cyrillic and Glagolitic be initiated, andthat any characters missing from the UCS be added at a future date to the general Combining DiacriticalMarks block if necessary. It has been observed that a line above or a tilde above a letter or letters can beused to show the numeric use of the letter. A number of additional punctuation marks are also requiredNames
The names of the letters present a number of problems. The first is that regular phonological developments have caused some of them to diverge in the modem languages; Õ√–≤– črı̆vı̆ CHRIVI, for example,
4

becomes črv in Croatian, чръв črăv in Bulgarian and червь červ´ in Russian. Secondly, the names ofsome letters used only in very early documents (such as – SPIDERY HA) have not survived. This particularly affects the nasal voweIs, all of which are known by the name jus (which corresponds to Slavonic
ÿƒœ jo˛sŭ YUSU), differentiated by various modern adjectives. For the letter ’ even the phonetic value is
uncertain: ö, jö or jo have been suggested. We have used YO, which was also used to name this characterin ISO 6861:1996. The names used here are in general use today, even though some of them are ancient.
The letters have inherent numerical values. Those from 1 to 1000 are well attested; the values 2000, 3000
and 5000 for Œ SHA, œ YERU and ” YU respectively are supported by fifteenth-century evidence; the higher
values assigned to some letters by modern authors are not reliable.
Ä
Å
Ç
É
Ñ
Ö
Ü
á
à
â
ä
ã
å
ç
é
è
ê
ë
í
ì
î
ï
ñ
ó
ò
ô
ö
õ
ú
ù
û
ü
†
°
¢
£
§
•
¶
ß
®
©
™
´

5

∞∏œ
±∆Ωœ∫
≤—¥—
≥æ∞≥¡æ∫¥¡±√¡µƒ≈œ∂∫≤—≈µ
∑—æ¡
∏µøæ—
π∂µ
∫∂µ
ª
º—√≤–
Ω∞Ω¡
æ”¥–µ
øœ∫ƒæ∫≈µ
¿∞Œ–
¡¿œ
¬¡Ω¡π
√–Ã∫
ƒæ¡≤¡
≈≤√–¥¡
∆Ωœ
«√–≈œ
»—√œ
¡≈œ

azъ
buky
vědě
glagolidobro
jestъ
živěteʒělozemljaiže
ižeidjervь
kako
ljudьjemyslitenašьonъ
pokojь
rьci
slovo
tvrьdo
ukъ
frьtъ
hěrъ
otъ

À∞
Ã∫
Õ√–≤–
Œ∞
µ√œ
µ√–
—≈–

šta
ci
črьvь
ša
jerъ
jerь
jatь

”

ju

Ÿ∫≈∞
∫∂∫Ã∞

fita
ižica

Value
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
200
300
400
500
600
700

AZU
BUKY
VEDE
GLAGOLIDOBROJESTUZHIVETEDZELOZEMLJAIZHEINITIAL IZHEIIDJERVIKAKOLJUDIJEMYSLITE
NASHI
ONU
POKOJIRICISLOVOTVRIDO
UKU
FRITU
HERU
OTU
PE
SHTA
800
CI
900
CHRIVI
1000
SHA
2000
YERU
3000
YERI
YATI
800
SPIDERY HA
YU
5000
SMALL YUS
SM. MASC. YUS
YO
IOT. SMALL YUSBIG YUSIOT. BIG YUSFITAIZHICAISO 6861
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
20
20
10
—
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
200
300
400
500
6000/600
700
800
900
1000
2000
4000
3000
5000
8000
—
7000
—
9000
—
9/500
400

¨
≠
Æ

štapic´

SHTAPICTROKUSTASTI A
LAT. MYSLITEUnicode Character Properties
Spacing letters, category “Lu”, bidi category “L” (strong left to right)
2C00-2C2E

Spacing letters, category “Ll”, bidi category “L” (strong left to right)
2C30-2C5E

Bibliography
Cubberley, Paul. 1988. “On the Origin and Development of the Slavonic Letternames”, in Australian
Slavonic and East European Studies, 2, 29-54. ISSN 0818-8149.
Cubberley, Paul. 1996. “The Slavic alphabets”, in Peter T. Daniels and William Bright, eds. The world’s
writing systems. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507993-0
Faulmann, Carl. 1990 (1880). Das Buch der Schrift. Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn. ISBN 3-8218-1720-8
Haarmann, Harald. 1990. Die Universalgeschichte der Schrift. Frankfurt: Campus. ISBN 3-593-34346-0
ISO 6861:1996. Information and documentation — Glagolitic alphabet coded character set for
bibliographic information interchange.
Leskien, A. 1922. Handbuch der altbulgarischen (altkirchenslavischen) Sprache. 6. Auflage. Heidelberg:
Carl Winters Universitätsverlag.
Marti, Roland. 1999. “Abecedaria: a key to the original Slavic alphabet”, pp. 175-200 of Thessaloniki,
Magna Moravia: Proceedings of the International Conference, Thessaloniki 16-19 October 1997.
Thessaloniki: Hellenic Association for Slavic Studies. ISBN 960-85959-3-2
Miklas, Heinz. 1998. “Griechisches Schriftdenken und slavische Schriftlichkeit. Glagolica und Kirillica
zwischen Verschriftlichung”, in Verschriftung und Verschriftlichung. Aspekte des Medienwechsels
in verschiedenen Kulturen und Epopchen, edd. Ch. Ehler und U. Schaefer. ScriptOrialia 94.
Tübingen. pp. 132-155.
Miklas, H., ed. 2000. Glagolitica: zum Ursprung der slavischen Schriftkultur. Unter der Mitarbeit von V.
Sadovski und S. Richter. ÖAW. (Schriften der Balkankomission. Philos.-hist. Kl., Philolog.
Abteilung; 41) Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Muren, Hinko. 1996-12-22. Ljubljana, Slovenia. Personal communication.
Nakanishi, Akira. 1990. Writing systems of the world: alphabets, syllabaries, pictograms. Rutland, VT:
Charles E. Tuttle. ISBN 0-8048-1654-9
Unicode Consortium. 1992. Unicode Technical Report #3: exploratory proposals.
Vajs, J. 1932. Rukovět’ hlaholské paleografie. Praha: Slovanský ústav.
Žubrinić, Darko. 1996. Hrvatska glagoljica. Zagreb: HDK sv. Jeronima. ISBN 953-6111-35-7
абургаев, еоргий Александрович. 1986. тарославянский язык. осква: росвещение.
Ягич, !гнатий "икентьевич. 1911. лаголическое письмо. #анктпетербург: !мп. Акад. %аук(Энциклопедия славянской филологии, 3, III).

6

Annex A
Sample from Leskien 1922:212.

Note the use of COMMA, FULL STOP, GREEK QUESTION MARK , and GREEK ANO TELEIA here.
Sample from абургаев 1986:20.

Note the use of the ARMENIAN FULL STOP, the GEORGIAN PARAGRAPH SEPARATOR and the GREEK ANO
TELEIA here.
7

Proposal to encode Glagolitic in the UCS

Ralph Cleminson & Michael Everson

TABLE XX - Row 2C: GLAGOLITIC

8

2C0

2C1

2C2

2C3

2C4

2C5

0

Ä

ê

†

∞

¿

–

6

·:

1

Å

ë °

±

¡

—

8

·:·

2

Ç í ¢ ≤

¬

“

9

:·:

3

É

≥

√

”

4

Ñ î § ¥

ƒ

‘

5

Ö ï •

µ

≈

’

6

Ü ñ ¶

∂

∆

÷

7

á ó ß ∑

«

◊

8

à

»

ÿ

9

â ô © π… ŸAä ö ™ ∫

~

⁄

B

ã õ ´

ª

À

¤

C

å ú

¨

º

Ã

‹

D

ç

≠

Ω

Õ

›

E

é û Æ æ

Œ

ﬁ

F

è ü

œ

ì

£

ò ® ∏

ù

ø

205

G = 00
P = 00Ralph Cleminson & Michael Everson

Proposal to encode Glagolitic in the UCSTABLE XX - Row 2C: GLAGOLITIC
hex

Name

hex

00
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
0A
0B
0C
0D
0E
0F
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
1A
1B
1C
1D
1E
1F
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
2A
2B
2C
2D
2E
2F
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
3A
3B
3C
3D
3E
3F
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
4A
4B
4C
4D
4E
4F
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58

GLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER AZUGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER BUKYGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER VEDE
GLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER GLAGOLIGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER DOBROGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER YESTUGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER ZHIVETEGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER DZELOGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER ZEMLJAGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER IZHEGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER INITIAL IZHEGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER IGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER DERVIGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER KAKOGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER LJUDIJE
GLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER MYSLITEGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER NASHIGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER ONUGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER POKOJI
GLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER RITSIGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER SLOVOGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER TVRIDOGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER UKU
GLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER FRITUGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER HERUGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER OTUGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER PEGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER SHTAGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER TSIGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER CHRIVIGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER SHAGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER YERUGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER YERIGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER YATIGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER SPIDERY HAGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER JUGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER SMALL YUSGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER SMALL MASCULINE YUSGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER YOGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER IOTATED SMALL YUSGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER BIG YUSGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER IOTATED BIG YUSGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER FITAGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER IZHITSAGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER SHTAPICGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER TROKUSTASTI AZUGLAGOLITIC CAPITAL LETTER LATINATE MYSLITE(This position shall not be used)
GLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER AZUGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER BUKYGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER VEDE
GLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER GLAGOLIGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER DOBROGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER YESTUGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER ZHIVETEGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER DZELOGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER ZEMLJAGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER IZHEGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER INITIAL IZHEGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER IGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER DERVIGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER KAKOGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER LJUDIJE
GLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER MYSLITEGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER NASHIGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER ONUGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER POKOJI
GLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER RITSIGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER SLOVOGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER TVRIDOGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER UKU
GLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER FRITUGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER HERUGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER OTUGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER PEGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER SHTAGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER TSIGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER CHRIVIGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER SHAGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER YERUGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER YERIGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER YATIGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER SPIDERY HAGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER YUGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER SMALL YUSGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER SMALL MASCULINE YUSGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER YOGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER IOTATED SMALL YUSGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER BIG YUS

59
5A
5B
5C
5D
5E
5F

GLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER IOTATED BIG YUSGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER FITAGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER IZHITSAGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER SHTAPICGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER TROKUSTASTI AZUGLAGOLITIC SMALL LETTER LATINATE MYSLITE(This position shall not be used)

2056
2058
2059

TRIANGULAR COLONDIAMOND COLON
QUINTUPLE COLON

Group 00

Plane 00

Name

Row 2C

9