Medieval Unicode Font Initiative

Transcription

1 Medieval Unicode Font Initiative Minutes from the 2nd MUFI meeting Lisboa March 2005 Locale: Centro de Linguística da Universidade Nova de Lisboa Participants: António H.A. Emiliano (AE), Lisboa, Portugal Michael Everson (ME), Westport, Ireland Florian Grammel (FG), Copenhagen, Denmark Odd Einar Haugen (OEH), Bergen, Norway Alec McAllister (AMA), Leeds, England Susana T. Pedro (SP), Lisboa, Portugal Andreas Stötzner (AS), Leipzig, Germany Chair: Odd Einar Haugen Minutes: Florian Grammel and Odd Einar Haugen These minutes do not intend to give a detailed record of the discussions on the MUFI's meeting in Lisbon, but focus on the results of the discussions. Page 1 of 5

2 From left to right: Susana T. Pedro, António H.A. Emiliano, Michael Everson, Odd Einar Haugen, Alec McAllister, Florian Grammel og Andreas Stötzner. Thursday 10 March 1. Smart font status The meeting opened with a discussion of OpenType and other smart font solutions. It was pointed out that AAT (Apple Advanced Typography) works on the Mac, but that OpenType, which is a solution developed by Microsoft, does not. Apple may choose to support OpenType, wholly or partially, but the exact plans are not known. There is also a third smart font solution, Graphite, which is being developed by Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). The meeting agreed that as long as there is no universal smart font support, it makes sense to use the PUA (Private Use Area) of the Unicode standard as a sort of waiting room. The precomposed characters, which fill a large part of the PUA in the present MUFI recommendation, can probably be decommissioned in the not too distant future - depending on the development of smart font solutions. The meeting also agreed that the ultimate goal of MUFI is to present a character recommendation that is completely Unicode compliant. However, while it can be hoped that some characters from the present MUFI recommendation will be accepted in future versions of the Unicode standard, a sizeable number of characters (or letter forms) will not be accepted. Unless these letter forms can be recognised as variants by Unicode, one still has to resort to the Private Use Area. Note (1) 1 June 2005: The meeting discussed the possibility of hybrid smart fonts containing OpenType as well as AAT tables. After the meeting, it has been shown that this indeed is possible. It also looks as if Apple is going Page 2 of 5

3 to support many, if not all, aspects of OpenType as of OS 10.4 (Tiger). 2. Updating the MUFI recommendation The meeting agreed on the following approximate schedule for upcoming versions of the MUFI recommendation: Version 1.0. This is the present version, published 8 December Persistent URL: MUFI recommendation v Version 1.1 should be published in This version will include Portuguese and Spanish characters (or letter forms) proposed by AE and SP. It might also include some of the characters from Latin incunables proposed by AS. OEH will circulate the recommendation among the MUFI members by the end of August. Note (2) 1 June 2005: At an informal meeting Saturday 13 March, AE, OEH and AS agreed that AS should make a version of his Andron font with the recommended MUFI characters. Note (3) 1 June 2005: At an informal meeting Sunday 14 March, AE and OEH agreed that the third section of the PUA in the MUFI recommendation, entitled Variant letter forms should be arranged alphabetically, not into sections like Nordic characters, Portuguese characters, etc. Many of these characters are found across Europe and do not belong to a single area or region. Version 2.0. This version should decommission the precomposed characters, i.e. the second section of the PUA in the MUFI recommendation. This version can not be published until there is broad support for smart fonts on major platforms and in major applications. Version 3.0. This version should decommission those PUA characters that Unicode is going to accept. The majority of these characters will be found in the first section of the PUA in the MUFI recommendation. As for the variant letter forms in the third section, they should be decommissioned to the extent that they are accepted as characters or character variants by Unicode. Friday 11 March 3. Planning a Unicode proposal This day was spent discussing the planned proposal to Unicode. The meeting focused on the winners, i.e. those characters most likely to be accepted by Unicode. ME will draw up a proposal to be circulated later The MUFI waiting list contains 43 additional characters. MUFI waiting list (web page). Some of these characters are already in the Unicode standard and will obviously retain their Unicode code points. The remaining characters must be allocated code points in the Private Use Area. As far as possible, this will be coordinated with the Titus project (some of these characters already have Titus PUA code points). The combining superscript characters in section 7 should only be included if there is suitable evidence. There may be other combining superscript characters that are missing from the MUFI recommendation (cf. subrange 7, pp ). Andrea de Leeuw van Weenen will be contacted for evidence. The only non-precomposed characters in the waiting list are the two critical signs in section 8. They will be assigned to code points F1D8 and F1D9 in the Private Use Area. They may also be candidates for the planned Unicode proposal Andrea de Leeuw van Weenen, Leiden, has propsed 4 additional characters. Link: Four missing characters (scanned image). 1. An us abbreviation on the base line (Tironean note). Accepted as a variant. 2. A punctuation mark of three dots and a comma below. Accepted if suitable evidence. Page 3 of 5

4 3. An er abbreviation mark below the base line. Accepted if suitable evidence. 4. A bar above the x height. This was seen as a writing variant ant thus not accepted AS has proposed 89 Latin abbreviation characters from early printed books. Link: Latin abbreviation characters (PDF file). Some of these characters are already in the MUFI recommendation (e.g. xx4a and xx4b) or are composed of characters in the recommendation (e.g. xx00, xx06). Some characters might be added as variant letter forms in the third section of the PUA. A handful might be accepted by Unicode since they have diacritical marks crossing the base character. Unicode tends to accept these characters since they can not easily be decomposed (unlike precomposed characters with loose diacritcs). The meeting focused on these characters: 1. xx17; k with diagonal stroke. Possible candidate. 2. xx27: pro character. Possible candidate. 3. xx2d: q with diagonal stroke. Possible candidate. 4. xx34: Q with diagonal stroke. Possible candidate. 5. xx3f: v with diagonal stroke. Possible candidate. 6. xx45: tall s with diagonal stroke. Possible candidate AE and SP have made a list of Medieval Portuguese characters. Link: Portuguese characters (PDF file). The majority of characters in this list is already in Unicode or in the MUFI recommendation. Those that are not are candidates for the third section of the PUA, Variant letter forms. A few characters were singled out as possible candidates for a Unicode proposal: 1. #186. Visigothic z. Possible candidate. 2. # Three combining superscript abbreviation marks. Possible candidates. 3. #242. Combining subscript abbreviation mark. Possible candidate. 4. # Two abbreviation signs. Possible candidates. 5. #252. Punctuation mark positura. Possible candidate. The meeting agreed that SP should go through Malcolm Parkes Pause and Effect in order to establish a general European list of punctuation marks Finally, the meeting went through the PUA section of the present MUFI recommendation looking for potential winners. The numbers below refer to the subranges in the recommendation. 1. Ligatures. Most ligatures are potential candidates. Evidence may be lacking for some of them. 2. Small capitals: Evidence needed. Small capital s is a possible candidate. 3. Enlarged minuscules. Not candidates. 4. Base line abbreviation characters. Candidates are the con sign (F156), the rum sign (F154), the final et sign (F155) and the is sign, if proper evidence is supplied (F155). The final et sign should have another name; also note that this sign is equivalent to xx43 in the proposal from AS (cf. 3.3 above). 5. Modified base line abbreviation characters. These are all candidates since the stroke crosses the base line character. 6. Combining marks. The er sign (F152) has now been accepted by Unicode. The ra sign (F157) is a possible candidate. The ur sign is not a development of superscript r rotunda (according to Stefán Karlsson) and should therefore be considered as a candidate. Both us signs (F151 and F15B) should be considered as candidates, and also the combining curl (F1C4). If proper evidence is supplied, the combining circumflex over two characters (F163) should be considered (examples in Faroese). The remaining characters should be classified as variants. 7. Combining superscript characters. Evidence must be supplied. There are probably more candidates; cf. 3.1 above. 8. Punctuation marks. This subrange should be augmented with punctuation marks from the Portuguese proposal by AE and SP. As mentioned above, SP will draw up a full list. Punctuation marks should probably be treated in a separate Unicode proposal. 9. Critical and epigraphical signs. All signs are possible candidates. Evidence must be supplied. 10. Metrical symbols. Not candidates. Page 4 of 5

5 The meeting agreed that ME should write a proposal for the winners to Unicode and circulate this among the participants and other interested parties. The other participants should supply pictures and stories for characters in need of proper evidence. FG will help with searching for evidence at the Arnamagnæan Institute in Copenhagen. The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet proposal can be used as a model. The meeting finally decided to establish a discussion list. ME agreed to do that. Note (4) 1 June 2005: A discussion list was established shortly afterwards. The list is now hosted by Google: MUFI. Note (5) 1 June 2005: Diana Luft, Cardiff, has contacted the MUFI group proposing two Medieval Welsh characters, a ligatured double l and an open 6 character often representing /w/ ( examples). They will be considered for inclusion in the next version of the MUFI recommendation. Comments to these minutes should be sent to Odd Einar Haugen by 10 June 2005 Back to the MUFI main page Created 27 May 2005 by OEH. Last update 3 June Page 5 of 5