ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N2241
2000-08-27
Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set
International Organization for Standardization
Organisation internationale de normalisationеждународная организация по стандартизации
Doc Type: Working Group Document
Title:
Proposal to add 6 Egyptological characters to the UCS
Source: Michael Everson
Status:Expert Contribution
Action:For consideration by JTC1/SC2/WG2 and UTC
Date:
2000-08-27
This document is based on discussion appearing in the document submitted by Michael Everson on 199907-24 as JTC1/SC2/WG2 N2043. It contains the proposal summary.

A. Administrative
1. Title
Proposal to add 6 Egyptological characters to ISO/IEC 10646.
2. Requester’s nameMichael Everson
3. Requester type
Expert contribution.
4. Submission date
2000-08-26.
5. Requester’s reference
N2403: On the apostrophe and quotation mark, with a note on Egyptian transliteration characters:
http://www.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/n2043.pdf
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 characters to existing block? Name?
Yes. Latin Extended-B.
2. Number of characters
6.
3. Proposed category
Category A.
4. Proposed level of implementation and rationale
Level 1. Base characters with no diacritics.
5a. Character names included in proposal?
Yes.
5b. Character names in accordance with guidelines?
Yes (see below).

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Proposal for the Universal Character Set

5c. Character shapes reviewable?
Yes (see below).
6a. Who will provide computerized font?
Michael Everson, EGT.
6b. Font currently available?
Yes.
6c. Font format?
TrueType.
7a. Are references (to other character sets, dictionaries, descriptive texts, etc.) provided?
Yes (see below).
7b. Are published examples (such as samples from newspapers, magazines, or other sources) of useof proposed characters attached?
Yes (see below).
8. Does the proposal address other aspects of character data processing?
No.

C. Technical – Justification
1. Contact with the user community?
Yes.
2. Information on the user community?
Egyptologists.
3a. The context of use for the proposed characters?
They are used in the transcription of Egyptian to Latin letters.
3b. Reference
See bibliography below.
4a. Proposed characters in current use?
Yes.
4b. Where?
In publishing, in education.
5a. Characters should be encoded entirely in BMP?
Yes.
5b. Rationale
They are Latin letters.
6. Should characters be kept in a continuous range?
Yes, if possible.
7a. Can the characters be considered a presentation form of an existing character or character
sequence?
No. See the notes on EGYPTOLOGICAL YOD below.
8a. Can any of the characters be considered to be similar (in appearance or function) to an existing
character?
No.
9a. Combining characters or use of composite sequences included?
No.
9b. List of composite sequences and their corresponding glyph images provided?
No.
10. Characters with any special properties such as control function, etc. included?
No.

Proposal for the Universal Character Set

D. Proposal
The Hebrew letters ALEF and AYIN and the Arabic letters HAMZA and AIN, having no equivalents in theLatin alphabet, are represented in transliteration by apostrophe-like glyphs of various kinds. This practicegoes back a long way. Clarke 1878 gives ‚ (!) for HAMZA and ’ for AIN. Faulmann 1880 uses a standard
alphabet for transcribing all the scripts in his book; he settled on ’ for ALEF and ˛ for AYIN in Hebrew, and’ for ALEF and ˛ for AIN in Arabic and Persian. Faulmann writes HAMZA with h‘. Palmer 1901 gives ’ for
HAMZA and ‘ for AIN. Egyptologists modified these traditions to suit their needs, devising letters of thelatin alphabet to represent these sounds in transcriptions of Egyptian text.
EGYPTOLOGICAL ALEF. The a letter based on ˛ the double-bellied AYIN is used in the Egyptologist
tradition to represent ALEF (written ). It generally has the letterform or ˘ (Gardiner 1966) or ˆ (Collier& Manley 1998); Loprieno 1995 gives the unusual ¸ (which could be U+025C LATIN SMALL LETTER
REVERSED OPEN E) but Loprieno’s typography is atypical. The EGYPTOLOGICAL ALEF has both a capital anda small form.
EGYPTOLOGICAL YOD. Egyptologists use a special i which has some kind of diacritic over it. This isproblematic because, although the character only has one function (to represent the sound written Ú), it
has several glyph forms in printed text. In part this was a result of the technology used to prepare books.
This character’s usual shape is ˙ (Gardiner 1966) or ˜ (Collier & Manley 1998); Loprieno 1995 substitutes>j (U+006A LATIN SMALL LETTER J). Betrò 1995 uses ı . It would be best to encode this character with asingle non-decomposable form, especially as the mark is not productive. The EGYPTOLOGICAL YOD has
both a capital and a small form.
EGYPTOLOGICAL AYIN. Egyptologists also use a special modifier letter (to represent the sound writtenÒ), written ˚ (Gardiner 1966) or ¯ (Collier & Manley 1998); Loprieno 1995 gives only ˝ (U+02BB
MODIFIER LETTER TURNED COMMA), but again, his typography is atypical. The shape (height, rotation,length) and size of this in printed texts is quite different from U+02BD MODIFIER LETTER REVERSEDCOMMA . Loprieno appears to have substituted available characters REVERSED OPEN E for ALEF, j for YOD,and ‘ for AYIN. The EGYPTOLOGICAL AYIN has both a capital and a small form.
The repertoire requested is given here with proposed code positions:3Ÿ 0234

LATIN CAPITAL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL ALEF

⁄0235

LATIN SMALL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL ALEF

¤ 0236

LATIN CAPITAL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL YOD‹LATIN SMALL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL YOD

0237› 0238LATIN CAPITAL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL AYINfi 0239

LATIN SMALL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL AYIN

Proposal for the Universal Character Set

ExamplesFrom Gardiner 1966. Sample showing LATIN CAPITAL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL ALEF in Ÿk. s and Ÿkr, andLATIN SMALL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL ALEF in ⁄tf.

From Gardiner 1966. Sample showing LATIN CAPITAL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL YOD in ¤n-h.rt and LATIN
SMALL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL YOD in ‹ n‹ and ‹ nw.

From Gardiner 1966. Sample showing LATIN CAPITAL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL AYIN in ›nk. t and LATIN
SMALL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL AYIN in fintyw. (Compare the height of the letter with that of the letter t.)

From Collier & Manley 1998. Sample showing the traditional characters.

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Proposal for the Universal Character Set

From Loprieno 1995. Loprieno appears to have substituted available characters REVERSED OPEN E for
ALEF, j for YOD, and ‘ for AYIN.

From Betrò 1995. Betrò appears to have constructed EGYPTOLOGICAL YOD out of a dotless i and a
combining right-pointing single guillemet, and to have used a high right-pointing single guillemet for
EGYPTOLOGICAL AYIN in ‹fin ‘baboon’. She has substituted a digit 3 for EGYPTOLOGICAL ALEF in ⁄ ‘vulture’.

Unicode Character Properties
Spacing letters, category “Lu”, bidi category “L” (strong left to right)
0234, 0236, 0238

Spacing letters, category “Ll”, bidi category “L” (strong left to right)
0235, 0237, 0239

BibliographyBetrò, Maria Carmela. 1995. Hiéroglyphes: les mystères de l’écriture. Paris: Flammarion. ISBN 2-08012465-X
Clarke, H. Wilberforce. 1878. The Persian manual: a pocket companion intended to facilitate theessential attainments of conversing with fluency and composing with accuracy, in the most gracefulof all the languages spoken in the East. London: Wm. H. Allen & Co.
Collier, Mark, & Bill Manley. 1998. How to read Egyptian hieroglyphs: a step-by-step guide to teachyourself. London: British Museum Press. ISBN 0-7141-1910-5
Gardiner, Alan. 1966. Egyptian grammar: being an introduction to the study of hieroglyphs. 3rd edition.
London: Oxford University Press.
Faulmann, Carl. 1990 (1880). Das Buch der Schrift. Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn. ISBN 3-8218-1720-8
Loprieno, Antonio. 1995. Ancient Egyptian: a linguistic introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 0-521-44849-2
Palmer, E. H. 1901. The Arabic manual: comprising a condensed grammar of both the classical andmodern Arabic, reading lessons and exercises, with analyses, and a vocabulary of useful words.
London: Samson Low, Marston & Co.

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