Re: Character codes for Egyptian transliteration

From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Thu Aug 21 2003 - 08:15:16 EDT

  • Next message: Paul James Cowie: "Re: Character codes for Egyptian transliteration"

    On 21/08/2003 03:14, Michael Everson wrote:

    > At 10:59 +0100 2003-08-21, Paul James Cowie wrote:
    >
    >> the sign used for aleph (looks like a 3, but isn't, obviously)
    >
    >
    > Not encoded yet.

    What are you using for ayin? If you are using U+02BF, you might consider
    using U+02BE as an interim for aleph, and considering the glyph like a 3
    as a typographic variant. U+02BE is commonly used for transliteration of
    Hebrew alef as well as the phoentically similar Arabic hamza. Or maybe
    you are using U+02BB or U+02BD (and yes, I know I am doing this in my
    Hebrew issues document, but only because the other glyphs were not in
    the font), not sure if you should be, in that case aleph would fit
    better with U+02BC though I guess you wouldn't want to change the glyph
    in your font as you don't want all your apostrophes looking like 3's.

    But there is probably sufficient evidence on this one to justify adding
    a character to Unicode. I have seen this 3 used for similar sounds in
    other languages. And I (very far from an expert in Egyptian!) have
    evidence in "How to read Egyptian hieroglyphs" by Collier & Manley. This
    3 seems to be the only transliteration character in the book which is
    not in Unicode.

    While we are considering number-like transliteration symbols, something
    rather like a 9 is commonly used for transliteration of Arabic ain and
    similar sounds in other languages. So perhaps that could be included in
    the same proposal.

    Or would U+021D or U+025C be suitable for your 3?

    >
    >> the sign used for yod (looks like a i with a right ring tick above it)
    >
    >
    > Encoding not determined yet.

    This one looks rather like U+1EC9 though I am not sure if the hook above
    is quite the right shape for you. You might prefer a regular i followed
    by U+0357 COMBINING RIGHT HALF RING ABOVE. Or maybe U+0313 would be
    preferred, this is the Greek smooth breathing and looks like a comma.

    >
    >> the sign used interchangeably for q (looks like a k with a dot
    >> beneath it)
    >
    >
    > U+1E33

    -- 
    Peter Kirk
    peter@qaya.org (personal)
    peterkirk@qaya.org (work)
    http://www.qaya.org/
    


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