Armenian Eternity Sign (proposal)

Documents N3923 “Proposal to add an Armenian Eternity Sign to the UCS”
(Karl Pentzlin, 2010-09-24) and N3924 “Proposal to encode two symbols for
Armenian in the UCS” (L2/10-354, Michael Everson, 2010-09-24) propose to
include RIGHT-FACING ARMENIAN ETERNITY SIGN and LEFT-FACING ARMENIAN
ETERNITY SIGN in the UCS. They are accepted to be added under the name
‘xxxx ARMENIAN ETERNITY SIGN’ to the common-use Miscellaneous Symbols and
Pictographs block (1F300-1F5FF).[1]

However, these signs are not specific to Armenians, but are widely used by
various nations in the Caucasus region. E.g. it is known as ‘Borjgali’ in
Georgia and used by Georgians as a solar sign on various monuments and in
traditional ornament, in manuscripts, on flags and even on modern coins and
banknotes. These signs are also found in other cultures of various regions
and periods (from Middle East to Baltic Sea and Iberian Peninsula and from
Iron Age to Middle Ages).[2]

Since the symbols are widely used in different cultures (and nowadays
also!), their direct attribution to a certain nation in an international
standard will be extremely biassed. Do I understand right, that in this
case the proper solution will be a neutral name for both entries in the
Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block and adding interpretations
specific to a certain nationality via aliases?

Best regards,
Alex.

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[1] These proposals were discussed on WG2 meeting 57 (2011-03-31) [see
N3903, section 9.4] and were accepted by resolution M57.13.
[2] For details see http://www.kartulad.org/pub/unicode/N3924/.
Received on Thu Jan 19 2012 - 05:15:15 CST