Comments on proposals for the Universal Multiple-Octed CodedCharacter Set - WG2 N2025-2
Prof. Dr. W. Röllig
1.) When generating characters from Old-Semitic languages, you need to know what you areaiming for. It can be sensible to generate, for a limited field of application, standardized
character forms that can be used in print. This is the case, e.g. for the Ugaritic cuneiform, theOld Persian cuneiform, for Phoenician and for the Old South Arabian alphabet. Here it is merely
reasonable to use standardized forms that in a sense develop an abstraction out of the variants
resulting from daily use. However, I would like to stress the fact that such standardized forms
are merely useful for specific, very limited purposes, possibly for the editions of specificcollections of inscriptions that are not concerned with paleographic questions.
2.) The very limited field of application for such generated characters can be explained within ourscience by the fact that unknown characters are normally transcribed into the Latin script, oftenwith the help of diacritical signs. In the last decades this has also been the dominant practice inletter press printing. Only in specific fields of the presentation of e. g. Phoenician and Aramaic
is the Hebraic character repertoire applied, namely in form of the so-called Quadratschrift. Moreis not needed from the scientific point of view of grammar and linguistics.
3.) Paleography is a central field of older Semitistics. Here the object is to reproduce inscriptions as
closely to their original as possible. For this, the forms of the letters are scrupuously to be taken
into consideration. As these are not standardized and scientific interest is focused especially on
unusual characters, it is pointless to generate standardized characters. Each edition ofinscriptions will therefore still have to be made by using drawings, under certain circumstances
also with the help of a scanner. It is pointless to generate character repertoires for each of thedifferent variants of characters that are found in different regions and appeared in different
times. This is the case for Phoenecian as well as for Aramaeic, Old South Arabian, Ugarian etc.
It is definitely also the case for the field of cuneiform languages, where it is also pointless tocover the very numerous character by computer. In a very limited range, possibly forintroductory studies for teaching purposes a character reservoir of main characters could bedefined (ca. 550 characters), that, in a standardized form, could be used for specific purposes.
For scientific purposes properly speaking they would be of no use.
4.) It is absolutely superfluous to generate the characters of Proto-Sinatic inscriptions, as especiallyin this case a high variability of characters is of the essence. These can be clearly reproduced inphotographs and drawings, but are not normally used in publications. Furthermore, there are
only very few such inscriptions which do not justify the necessary effort.

Closing remark
The literature used by authors of character lists is mostly of a secondary nature, i.e. one that has
already exploited the truely scientific publications in a popular way. Through this, of course,
mistakes have been added. Some of this literature is also clearly no longer up to date. From thisfollows, furthermore, that sometimes character forms appear in these character lists that are notcorrect or at least cannot be understood in this manner anymore today, and that on the other handthe very numerous variants that have since been discovered, have, for reasons unbeknownst to me,
not been taken into account. If they knew these variants, the authors should have noticed that theirundertaking was not very useful.
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I would be grateful if you could introduce my comments into the discussion about the relevant
projects –– in the hope that no superfluous work is done which is of no use to the academic worl.

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