Rick McGowan Sent: Friday, May 28, 2004 5:18 PM > Bob Richmond discussed... > > > Recap. Michaels 'n1944' proposal for Egyptian Hieroglyphs in Unicode > > (1999) > > Just FYI, the control codes were a rather controversial feature of that > proposal. It would also be worth surveying (again) the use of controls in > existing Egyptian implementations. >
Thanks for the background. Schemes in use have not changed much since the proposal was written. A new opportunity (as yet unused) is the OpenType feature set although OS support is slow in getting out to users - I'm doing an experimental PUA implementation to evaluate how this can simplify the uses of control codes/markup but will take some time before I have any firm conclusions. I'll be happy to write a summary of control code issues this summer when have time. > > I understand the UTC position was in favour of coding a basic > > (partial-Gardiner) character set but deferring the larger corpus > > and control elements. This would have been useful and fine to > > build on incrementally but IMO 5 years on, it is not only > > possible but highly desirable to go further than this. > > UTC at last check was still in favor of encoding the Gardiner set, minus > control codes, just as soon as someone is able to come up with a revised > proposal for the 700+ characters. Funding and time are the current > inhibitors to work on the proposal, as I understand it. And I'm afraid at > this point, Egyptian is nowhere near being encoded. > > Rick > I'm aware of and supportive of SEI activities. I've also recently completed a survey into around 400 additional characters beyond the 700+. This selection is based on the complete Gardiner font (the usually quoted 700+ is based on the subset given in 'Egyptian Grammar' sign index), popular textbooks and definite user requirements (mainly, but not entirely focussed on Middle rather than Old or Late Egyptian). These extensions to basic Gardiner were open to public feedback, not just a personal selection. It is interesting to note there are a number of significant signs not given in Hieroglyphica (a very useful work but particularly influenced by the Ptolemaic period and later when there was an explosion of new signs) used in Michaels list. From this experience, I'm convinced current mainstream user requirements go beyond the 'Gardiner set' yet the extended set (as given in the proposal) is also inappropriate. Hence my comment above. Incidentally. Apart from the control characters, what problems did UTC have with the proposal for the 700+ that need to be addressed in a revision? Bob Richmond Saqqara Technology
