Scripts & Encoding
Digital Humanities
Rethinking Unicode for Non-Linear Writing: A Follow-up Case Study on Codex Mendoza and the Limits of Linear Character Encoding
Nunzio Mazzaferro, Luciano Perondi, Daniele Capo, Antonio Perri
This case study presents a follow-up to previous work on the tentative encoding of Codex Mendoza folio 2r, using Aztec pictographic writing as a stress test for Unicode’s linear character model. It examines how linguistic and semantic content can be encoded through spatial arrangement, hierarchy, orientation, connectors, and visual variables, rather than through character sequence alone. The session proposes a multilayer descriptive model based on entaxis and synsemia, outlining what such non-linear written artefacts reveal about the limits of current digital text encoding.