Unicode
From Glossing Ancient Languages
Transliterations and transcriptions of ancient languages usually use some special characters, e.g. Greek signs, like alpha (α), ‘s’ with caron (š), ‘h’ with breve below (ḫ), ‘t’ with dot below (ṭ), Semitic Ain (ꜥ), Egyptological Alif (ꜣ).
In order to produce a robust file for e.g. a publisher, i.e. a file that is going to be displayed correctly on any electronic device, it is advisable that the encoder uses strictly Unicode fonts to enter his/her data. Characters that have been entered with a Unicode font cannot be confused on any other device. This is because the file actually contains the unique Unicode number of the intended character, e.g. U+1E6D. This number is unique and reserved for this very character all across the world in any Unicode font. With Unicode fonts, the only things that can happen are: a) The character cannot be displayed at all on the receiver’s device; b) The style of the font may be different, depending on the actual Unicode font that is installed on the receiver’s device.)
Recommended fonts
For glossing in general or for editing specific languages, we recommend to install the following fonts:
| Language | Fonts | Character examples |
|---|---|---|
| Glossing in general | Charis SIL | diacritics, IPA symbols, ā ē ī ō ū |
| Akkadian | Times New Roman Arial Unicode MS Charis SIL New Athena Unicode Junicode |
ʾ ʿ ḫ ṣ š ṭ |
| Coptic | Antinouu IFAO-Grec Unicode |
ⲁ ⲉ ⲙ ϣ ϩ ϭ ϯ ⳉ ⳁ |
| Ancient Egyptian [1] | New Athena Unicode Junicode |
ꜣ ʾ ꞽ i̯ ï ꜥ u̯ ḥ ḫ ẖ h̭ ś š ḳ č ṯ ṭ ṱ č̣ ḏ |
| Greek | New Athena Unicode [2] IFAO-Grec Unicode |
α ζ ς ή ω ᾆ ἧ ὧ. |
| Hittite | Times New Roman Arial Unicode MS Charis SIL New Athena Unicode Junicode |
ḫ š |
Recommended programs and links
Keyboard layouts
Creator programs
- Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (Windows).
- Mac OS Keyboard Layout Editor Ukulele
Ready layouts
- Egyptological transliteration, see https://www.archaeologie.hu-berlin.de/de/aknoa/service/links.
Unicode character programs and links
- BabelStone BabelMap (Windows)
- Fileformat.info Unicode character search (online)
Required Unicode characters
| Character | Unicode number |
Character | Unicode number |
Languages |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ʿ | U+02BF | Akkadian | ||
| ʾ | U+02BE | Akkadian, Ancient Egyptian | ||
| ꜥ | U+A725 | Ꜥ | U+A724 | Ancient Egyptian |
| ꜣ | U+A723 | Ꜣ | U+A722 | Ancient Egyptian |
| č | U+010D | Č | U+010C | Ancient Egyptian |
| č̣ | U+010D&U+0323 | Č̣ | U+010C&U+0323 | Ancient Egyptian |
| ḏ | U+1E0F | Ḏ | U+1E0E | Ancient Egyptian |
| ḥ | U+1E25 | Ḥ | U+1E24 | Ancient Egyptian |
| ḫ | U+1E2B | Ḫ | U+1E2A | Akkadian, Ancient Egyptian, Hittite |
| ẖ | U+1E96 | H̱ | 'H'&U+0331 | Ancient Egyptian |
| h̭ | 'h'&U+032D | H̭ | 'H'&U+032D | Ancient Egyptian |
| ꞽ | U+A7BD | Ꞽ | U+A7BC | Ancient Egyptian |
| i̯ | 'i'&U+032F | Ancient Egyptian | ||
| ï | U+00EF | Ancient Egyptian | ||
| ḳ | U+1E33 | Ḳ | U+1E32 | Ancient Egyptian |
| ṣ | U+032E | Ṣ | U+032D | Akkadian |
| ś | U+015B | Ś | U+015A | Ancient Egyptian |
| š | U+0161 | Š | U+0160 | Akkadian, Ancient Egyptian, Hittite |
| ṯ | U+1E6F | Ṯ | U+1E6E | Ancient Egyptian |
| ṭ | U+1E6D | Ṭ | U+1E6C | Akkadian, Ancient Egyptian |
| ṱ | U+1E71 | Ṱ | U+1E70 | Ancient Egyptian |
| u̯ | ‘u’&U+032F | Ancient Egyptian | ||
| ⸗ | U+2E17 | Ancient Egyptian | ||
| ⸢ | U+2E22 | ⸣ | U+2E23 | text critical markup |
| ⟨ | U+27E8 | ⟩ | U+27E9 | text critical markup |
References
- ↑ Daniel A. Werning. Egyptological Transliteration in Unicode, http://hdl.handle.net/21.11101/0000-0000-9E1A-2; Wikipedia, Ägyptische Hieroglyphen. In der elektronischen Datenverarbeitung.
- ↑ Note that New Athena Unicode uses non-standardized Private Use Area for some few characters, e.g. . See here.