Medieval Unicode Font Initiative

A proposal for supplementary characters in Unicode: Medieval Nordic

 

Subrange 1: Mixed script characters

Medieval manuscripts were written in several scripts, such as Uncial, Insular, Carolingian, and Gothic. As long as the manuscript is written in a uniform script, whether it is Insular or Carolingian, it is usually not advisable to encode each character as belonging to a specific script. Thus, the character "b" should be encoded as "b" whether it is writtin in Insular or Carolingian script. However, in many Medieval manuscripts there is a mixture of scripts, e.g. of Insular and Carolingian letter forms, and some transcribers would like to encode extraneous letter forms as such, e.g. sporadic Insular letter forms in an otherwise Carolingian script. This applies especially to the most distinct letter forms, such as "f", "r" and "v" in Insular script, and "d", "e", "m" and "t" in Uncial script. Note that the very distinct Insular "g" is not included below, since it does not appear in Medieval Nordic sources. For Old English, however, this character would probably be of interest. Cf. version 1 of this proposal.

This subrange also includes a few variant letter forms such as the round "r" and descending "tall s". See an example of an Old Norwegian diplomatic edition containing some of the characters in this subrange. These characters are found in a large number of editions from the 20th century and it is highly likely that diplomatic edition will continue to use them.

Unicode 3.2 does not recognise any of the characters below.

 

1.1 Main character forms

This list contains characters that ought to be recognized as separate characters and allocated individual code points in Unicode.

Glyph

Entity

Unicode

Descriptive name

&dunc;

0000

LATIN LETTER UNCIAL D

&eunc;

0000

LATIN LETTER UNCIAL E

&kunc;

0000

LATIN LETTER UNCIAL K

&munc;

0000

LATIN LETTER UNCIAL M

&tunc;

0000

LATIN LETTER UNCIAL T

&fins;

0000

LATIN SMALL LETTER INSULAR F

&Fins;

0000

LATIN CAPITAL LETTER INSULAR F

&rins;

0000

LATIN SMALL LETTER INSULAR R

&vins;

0000

LATIN SMALL LETTER INSULAR V (*)

&Vins;

0000

LATIN CAPITAL LETTER INSULAR V (*)

(*) These characters reflect the Old English "wynn", which are included in Latin Extended-B as LATIN LETTER WYNN (01BF) and LATIN CAPITAL LETTER WYNN (01F7). However, the Old Norse variants are usually open, resembling the character "y", and should probably be allocated separate code points. Cf. the words "víllía vera við" in the first line of this example.

&rrot;

0000

LATIN SMALL LETTER R ROTUNDA

&stalldes;

0000

LATIN SMALL LETTER TALL S DESCENDING (*)

(*) This character extends below the base line, while the ordinary tall s is located on the base line.

1.2 Variant character forms

This list contains characters that should be seen as variant forms, and thus not allocated their own code points. This list is obviously open-ended, but it is still possible to identify a number of commonly recognized forms (allographs).

Glyph

Entity

Unicode

Descriptive name

&acl;

0000

LATIN SMALL LETTER A CLOSED

&finscl;

0000

LATIN SMALL LETTER INSULAR F CLOSED

&y1;

0000

LATIN SMALL LETTER Y TYPE 1 (LEFT-HAND STROKE MAIN STAVE)

&y2;

0000

LATIN SMALL LETTER Y TYPE 2 (RIGHT-HAND STROKE MAIN STAVE)

&y3;

0000

LATIN SMALL LETTER Y TYPE 3 (RIGHT-HAND STROKE MAIN STAVE AND TAIL CURVING TO THE RIGHT)

All three forms of "y" can appear with a dot above. On the various forms of "y", cf. Hreinn Benediktsson, Early Icelandic Script, Reykjavík 1965, p. 50.

Version 2.0, 5 February 2003 OEH