Re: What should or should not be encoded in Unicode? (from Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop)

[wjgo_10...@btinternet.com via Unicode]

Joel Kalvesmaki asks nine questions, six in the first block and three in 
the second block.
Numbering from 1 through to 9 in the order that they are asked, I do 
not, at present understand the question for many of them and I can, at 
present, only answer question 7 definitively. Some questions may need an 
answer in two parts, one of the parts about my specific project, and the 
other part about if one or more people also decide to have his or her 
own encoding space in a similar manner.
I realize that not even understanding the question at this time may not 
sound very good to just some of the people who do understand the 
question, but I am not someone who knowingly purports that he knows what 
he is talking about when he does not. I am a researcher and as I am now 
on awareness of these questions.I need to find out so that in the future 
I can answer such questions with a sound background knowledge of the 
topic.
It might be that I know of some matters but that I am not aware of the 
parlance used to describe them in the post to which I am replying..

So now to my thoughts on some of the questions.
1 to 4. I do not at present understand the question.
5. Perhaps, independent of each other, you bind !123 to a character 
semantically identical to one I've bound to !234. What rules are in 
place to allow interchangeability?
I am not sure this is the best possible answer, but with care the 
problem should not happen in the first place. I am thinking that people 
could perhaps avoid it happening in the first place by using an informal 
discussion method similar that used when proposing a new alt. group in 
the usenet system that was in widespread use before the web was 
invented.

6. I do not at present understand the question.
7. Or maybe you're not so much concerned about interoperability as are 
you are with extending the PUA block beyond its current limits?
No, absolutely not. I have used the Private Use Areas on a number of 
occasions and found them extremely useful to have available. Yet any 
assignment in not unique and, except in very limited special limited 
prearranged circumstances, interoperability is not possible. My research 
project is very much about interoperability with provenance. 
Interoperabilty with provenance is central to what I am trying fo 
achieve.

8. Something like SGML/XML entities?
Until mention in the post to which I am replying, I had never known of 
them.
9.  Couldn't you simply capitalize on the rules that already exist for 
entities?
From what I have read about them today, well, I suppose that I could, 
but that is not my approach and I am not going to use them.
My items are not emoji, but emoji are either expressed by an atomic 
character or by a sequence of atomic characters, such sequences decoded 
upon reception to produce a glyph. My proposed system uses sequences of 
atomic character such that such sequences could be decoded upon 
reception to produce localized output. A similar yet different process. 
I simply do not want, as a design choice, all that angled bracket stuff, 
it is just not what I am trying to do.


If anyone on this mailing list who understands some or all of what I do 
not, your comments in this thread would be very welcome please.
The first three links on my webspace are relevant to my research 
project.

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/
The website is safe to use. It is hosted on a server run these days by 
Plusnet PLC, a United Kingdom internet service provider. It is not 
hosted on my computer.

William Overington
Saturday 15 February 2020



-- Original Message --
From: "via Unicode" 
To: wjgo_10...@btinternet.com
Cc: unicode@unicode.org
Sent: Saturday, 2020 Feb 15 At 10:11
Subject: Re: What should or should not be encoded in Unicode? (from Re: 
Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop)

Hi William,

I don't fully understand your proposed encoding scheme (e.g., Is there a 
namespace each encoding scheme is bound to? How do namespaces get 
encoded? How are syntax strictures encoded?), but even then, presuming 
it's sound, you've said in the message before that this encoding space 
will enhance interoperability. What mechanism is in place to make my 
encoding space interoperable with yours? Perhaps, independent of each 
other, you bind !123 to a character semantically identical to one I've 
bound to !234. What rules are in place to allow interchangeability? What 
about one-to-many or many-to-many or vague or ambiguous mappings across 
encoding schemes, or mappings that we might reasonably contest?


Or maybe you're not so much concerned about interoperability as are you 
are with extending the PUA block beyond its current limits? Something 
like SGML/XML entities? Couldn't you simply capitalize on the rules that 
already exist for entities?


Best wishes,

jk
--
Joel Kalvesmaki
Director, Text Alignment Network
http://textalign.net <http://textalign.net>

On 2020-02-14 15:52, wjgo_10...@btinternet.com v

Re: What should or should not be encoded in Unicode? (from Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop)

[via Unicode]

Hi William,

I don't fully understand your proposed encoding scheme (e.g., Is there a 
namespace each encoding scheme is bound to? How do namespaces get 
encoded? How are syntax strictures encoded?), but even then, presuming 
it's sound, you've said in the message before that this encoding space 
will enhance interoperability. What mechanism is in place to make my 
encoding space interoperable with yours? Perhaps, independent of each 
other, you bind !123 to a character semantically identical to one I've 
bound to !234. What rules are in place to allow interchangeability? What 
about one-to-many or many-to-many or vague or ambiguous mappings across 
encoding schemes, or mappings that we might reasonably contest?


Or maybe you're not so much concerned about interoperability as are you 
are with extending the PUA block beyond its current limits? Something 
like SGML/XML entities? Couldn't you simply capitalize on the rules that 
already exist for entities?


Best wishes,

jk
--
Joel Kalvesmaki
Director, Text Alignment Network
http://textalign.net

On 2020-02-14 15:52, wjgo_10...@btinternet.com via Unicode wrote:
The solution is to invent my own encoding space. This sits on top of 
Unicode, could be (perhaps?) called markup, but it works!


It may be perilous, because some software may enforce the strict 
official code point limits.


I  have now realized that what I wrote before is ambiguous.

When I wrote "sits on top of Unicode" I was not meaning at some code
points above U+10 in the Unicode map, though I accept that it
could quite reasonably be read as meaning that.

My encoding space sits on top of Unicode in the sense that it uses a
sequence of regular Unicode characters for each code point in my
encoding space.

For example

∫⑦⑧①

or

!781

or

a character sequence of a base character, followed by a tag
exclamation mark followed by three tag digits and a cancel tag.

All three examples above have the same meaning.

∫⑦⑧① is useful as more unlikely otherwise than !123, though !123 is
easier to use and could be used in a GS1-128 barcode.

The tag sequence has the potential to become incorporated into Unicode
for universal standardization of unambiguous interoperability
everywhere. That is a long term goal for me.

The example above uses a three-digit code number. My encoding space
allows for various numbers of digits, with a minimum of three digits
and a much larger theoretical maximum. The most digits in use at
present in my research project in any one code number is six.

William Overington

Friday 14 February 2020

Re: What should or should not be encoded in Unicode? (from Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop)

[wjgo_10...@btinternet.com via Unicode]

The solution is to invent my own encoding space. This sits on top of 
Unicode, could be (perhaps?) called markup, but it works!


It may be perilous, because some software may enforce the strict 
official code point limits.


I  have now realized that what I wrote before is ambiguous.

When I wrote "sits on top of Unicode" I was not meaning at some code 
points above U+10 in the Unicode map, though I accept that it could 
quite reasonably be read as meaning that.


My encoding space sits on top of Unicode in the sense that it uses a 
sequence of regular Unicode characters for each code point in my 
encoding space.


For example

∫⑦⑧①

or

!781

or

a character sequence of a base character, followed by a tag exclamation 
mark followed by three tag digits and a cancel tag.


All three examples above have the same meaning.

∫⑦⑧① is useful as more unlikely otherwise than !123, though !123 is 
easier to use and could be used in a GS1-128 barcode.


The tag sequence has the potential to become incorporated into Unicode 
for universal standardization of unambiguous interoperability 
everywhere. That is a long term goal for me.


The example above uses a three-digit code number. My encoding space 
allows for various numbers of digits, with a minimum of three digits and 
a much larger theoretical maximum. The most digits in use at present in 
my research project in any one code number is six.


William Overington

Friday 14 February 2020

Re: What should or should not be encoded in Unicode? (from Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop)

[Hans Åberg via Unicode]

> On 13 Feb 2020, at 16:41, wjgo_10...@btinternet.com via Unicode 
>  wrote:
> 
> Yet a Private Use Area encoding at a particular code point is not unique. 
> Thus, except with care amongst people who are aware of the particular 
> encoding, there is no interoperability, such as with regular Unicode encoded 
> characters.
> 
> However faced with a need for interoperability for my research project, I 
> have found a solution making use of the Glyph Substitution capability of an 
> OpenType font.
> 
> The solution is to invent my own encoding space. This sits on top of Unicode, 
> could be (perhaps?) called markup, but it works!

It may be perilous, because some software may enforce the strict official code 
point limits.

Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Adam Borowski via Unicode]

On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 09:15:18PM +, Richard Wordingham via Unicode wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Feb 2020 20:15:07 +
> Shawn Steele via Unicode  wrote:
> 
> > I confess that even though I know nothing about Hieroglyphs, that I
> > find it fascinating that such a thoroughly dead script might still be
> > living in some way, even if it's only a little bit.
> 
> Plenty of people have learnt how to write their name in hieroglyphs.
> However, it is rare enough that my initials suffice to label my milk at
> work.
> 
> What's more striking is the implication that people are still
> exchanging messages in Middle Egyptian.

I don't think non-Egyptologist recipients are even aware what language that
is, or even that it's actual meaningful message rather than an hieroglyph-
looking doodle.  It's like maker's marks done by/for illiterate people
(such as most artisans in the past) -- as long as it's a distinct symbol,
it does its job.

For example, I end my work emails with "ᛗᛖᛟᚹ" and everyone so far assumed
it's either my initials or at most some greeting.


喵!
-- 
⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ Latin:   meow 4 characters, 4 columns,  4 bytes
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Greek:   μεου 4 characters, 4 columns,  8 bytes
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋  Runes:   ᛗᛖᛟᚹ 4 characters, 4 columns, 12 bytes
⠈⠳⣄ Chinese: 喵   1 character,  2 columns,  3 bytes <-- best!

Aw: RE: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Marius Spix via Unicode]

That glyph is coded on position U+1F5B3 OLD PERSONAL COMPUTER, see 
http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/Aegyptus.pdf
 
 

Gesendet: Donnerstag, 13. Februar 2020 um 07:58 Uhr
Von: "うみほたる via Unicode" 
An: unicode@unicode.org
Betreff: RE: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop
The early versions of the font Aegyptus (http://users.teilar.gr/~g1951d/) has 
the glyph as one of "Dingbats" distinguished from general characters.
The attached image is from the PDF file for Aegyptus.ttf version 3.17 (2012).

Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[via Unicode]

Strange, has several meanings, not all positive. Perhaps the term 
outlier is less ambiguous. One definition is unfamiliar, some outliers 
over time become widespread in use, become famliar we no longer consider 
them strange, but as they are still different are still outliers. CJK is 
a living script so new characters come and go, not all become widespread 
in there use.


"Egyptologist" is certainly an outlier, an certainly strange to me. One 
question is what do "Egyptologist" think of it.


John

On 2020-02-14 08:13, Ken Whistler via Unicode wrote:

Well, no, in this case "strange" means strange, as Ken Lunde notes.
I'm just pointing to his list, because it pulls together quite a few
Han characters that *also* have dubious cases for encoding.

Or you could turn the argument around, I suppose, and note that just
because the hieroglyph for "Egyptologist" is strange, that doesn't
necessarily mean that the case for encoding it is dubious. ;-)

--Ken

On 2/13/2020 3:47 PM, j...@koremail.com wrote:
An interesting comparison, if strange means dubious, then the name 
kstrange should be changed or some of the content removed because many 
of the characters in the set are not dubious in the least.

Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Ken Whistler via Unicode]

Well, no, in this case "strange" means strange, as Ken Lunde notes. I'm 
just pointing to his list, because it pulls together quite a few Han 
characters that *also* have dubious cases for encoding.


Or you could turn the argument around, I suppose, and note that just 
because the hieroglyph for "Egyptologist" is strange, that doesn't 
necessarily mean that the case for encoding it is dubious. ;-)


--Ken

On 2/13/2020 3:47 PM, j...@koremail.com wrote:
An interesting comparison, if strange means dubious, then the name 
kstrange should be changed or some of the content removed because many 
of the characters in the set are not dubious in the least.

Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[via Unicode]

Dear Ken

An interesting comparison, if strange means dubious, then the name 
kstrange should be changed or some of the content removed because many 
of the characters in the set are not dubious in the least.


Regards
John

On 2020-02-14 04:08, Ken Whistler via Unicode wrote:

You want "dubious"?!

You should see the hundreds of strange characters already encoded in
the CJK *Unified* Ideographs blocks, as recently documented in great
detail by Ken Lunde:

https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20059-unihan-kstrange-update.pdf

Compared to many of those, a hieroglyph of a man (or woman) holding a
laptop is positively orthodox!

--Ken

On 2/13/2020 11:47 AM, Phake Nick via Unicode wrote:
Those characters could also be put into another block for the same 
script similar to how dubious characters in CJK are included by 
placing them into "CJK Compatibility Ideographs" for round trip 
compatibility with source encoding.

Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Richard Wordingham via Unicode]

On Thu, 13 Feb 2020 20:15:07 +
Shawn Steele via Unicode  wrote:

> I confess that even though I know nothing about Hieroglyphs, that I
> find it fascinating that such a thoroughly dead script might still be
> living in some way, even if it's only a little bit.

Plenty of people have learnt how to write their name in hieroglyphs.
However, it is rare enough that my initials suffice to label my milk at
work.

What's more striking is the implication that people are still
exchanging messages in Middle Egyptian.

Richard.

Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Asmus Freytag via Unicode]

  
  
On 2/12/2020 3:26 PM, Shawn Steele via
  Unicode wrote:


  
From the point of view of Unicode, it is simpler: If the character is in use or have had use, it should be included somehow.

  
  
That bar, to me, seems too low.  Many things are only used briefly or in a private context that doesn't really require encoding.

The term "use" clearly should be understood as "used in active
  public interchange".
From that point on, its gets tricky. Generally, in order to
  standardize something presupposes a community with shared, active
  conventions of usage. However, sometimes, what the community would
  like is to represent faithfully somebody's private convention, or
  some convention that's fallen out of use.
Such scenarios  may require exceptions to the general statement,
  but the distinction between truly ephemeral use and use that,
  while limited in time, should be digitally archivable in plain
  text is and always should be a matter of judgment.


  

The hieroglyphs discussion is interesting because it presents them as living (in at least some sense) even though they're a historical script.  Apparently modern Egyptologists are coopting them for their own needs.  There are lots of emoji for professional fields.  In this case since hieroglyphs are pictorial, it seems they've blurred the lines between the script and emoji.  Given their field, I'd probably do the same thing.

Focusing on the community of scholars (and any other current
  users) rather than the historical community of original users
  seems rather the appropriate thing to do. Whenever a modern
  community uses a historic script, new conventions will emerge.
  These may even include conventions around transcribing existing
  documents (because the historic communities had no conventions
  around digitizing their canon).


  

I'm not opposed to the character if Egyptologists use it amongst themselves, though it does make me wonder if it belongs in this set?  Are there other "modern" hieroglyphs?  (Other than the errors, etc mentioned earlier, but rather glyphs that have been invented for modern use).

I think the proposed location is totally fine. Trying to
  fine-tune a judgement about characters by placing them in specific
  way is a fools game. If needed, distinctions can be expressed via
  character properties.
A./




  

-Shawn 






  

RE: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Shawn Steele via Unicode]

I'm not opposed to a sub-bloc for "Modern Hieroglyphs"  

I confess that even though I know nothing about Hieroglyphs, that I find it 
fascinating that such a thoroughly dead script might still be living in some 
way, even if it's only a little bit.

-Shawn

-Original Message-
From: Unicode  On Behalf Of Ken Whistler via 
Unicode
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2020 12:08 PM
To: Phake Nick 
Cc: unicode@unicode.org
Subject: Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

You want "dubious"?!

You should see the hundreds of strange characters already encoded in the CJK 
*Unified* Ideographs blocks, as recently documented in great detail by Ken 
Lunde:

https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20059-unihan-kstrange-update.pdf

Compared to many of those, a hieroglyph of a man (or woman) holding a laptop is 
positively orthodox!

--Ken

On 2/13/2020 11:47 AM, Phake Nick via Unicode wrote:
> Those characters could also be put into another block for the same 
> script similar to how dubious characters in CJK are included by 
> placing them into "CJK Compatibility Ideographs" for round trip 
> compatibility with source encoding.

Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Ken Whistler via Unicode]

You want "dubious"?!

You should see the hundreds of strange characters already encoded in the 
CJK *Unified* Ideographs blocks, as recently documented in great detail 
by Ken Lunde:


https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20059-unihan-kstrange-update.pdf

Compared to many of those, a hieroglyph of a man (or woman) holding a 
laptop is positively orthodox!


--Ken

On 2/13/2020 11:47 AM, Phake Nick via Unicode wrote:
Those characters could also be put into another block for the same 
script similar to how dubious characters in CJK are included by 
placing them into "CJK Compatibility Ideographs" for round trip 
compatibility with source encoding.

Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Phake Nick via Unicode]

Those characters could also be put into another block for the same script
similar to how dubious characters in CJK are included by placing them into
"CJK Compatibility Ideographs" for round trip compatibility with source
encoding.

在 2020年2月14日週五 03:35，Richard Wordingham via Unicode 
寫道：

> On Thu, 13 Feb 2020 10:18:40 +0100
> Hans Åberg via Unicode  wrote:
>
> > > On 13 Feb 2020, at 00:26, Shawn Steele 
> > > wrote:
> > >> From the point of view of Unicode, it is simpler: If the character
> > >> is in use or have had use, it should be included somehow.
> > >
> > > That bar, to me, seems too low.  Many things are only used briefly
> > > or in a private context that doesn't really require encoding.
> >
> > That is a private use area for more special use.
>
> Writing the plural ('Egyptologists') by writing the plural strokes below
> the glyph could be difficult if the renderer won't include them in the
> same script run.
>
> Richard.
>
>

Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Richard Wordingham via Unicode]

On Thu, 13 Feb 2020 10:18:40 +0100
Hans Åberg via Unicode  wrote:

> > On 13 Feb 2020, at 00:26, Shawn Steele 
> > wrote: 
> >> From the point of view of Unicode, it is simpler: If the character
> >> is in use or have had use, it should be included somehow.  
> > 
> > That bar, to me, seems too low.  Many things are only used briefly
> > or in a private context that doesn't really require encoding.  
> 
> That is a private use area for more special use.

Writing the plural ('Egyptologists') by writing the plural strokes below
the glyph could be difficult if the renderer won't include them in the
same script run.

Richard.

What should or should not be encoded in Unicode? (from Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop)

[wjgo_10...@btinternet.com via Unicode]

Hans Åberg >>> From the point of view of Unicode, it is simpler: If the 
character is in use or have had use, it should be included somehow.


Shawn Steele >> That bar, to me, seems too low.  Many things are only 
used briefly or in a private context that doesn;t really require 
encoding.


Hans Åberg > That is a private use area for more special use.

I have used the Private Use Area, quite a lot over many years.

I have a licence for a fontmaking program, FontCreator. A good feature 
of the Windows operating system is that all installed fonts can be used 
in most installed programs. Private Use Area code points are official 
Unicode code points. These three factors together allow me to design and 
produce TrueType fonts for new symbols each encoded at a Private Use 
Area code point (a different code point for each such novel symbol), 
install the fonts, and use them in various programs, including a desktop 
publishing program and thereby make PDF (Portable Document Format) 
documents that include both ordinary text and the novel symbols. These 
PDF documents are then suitable for placing on the web and for Legal 
Deposit with The British Library.


Yet a Private Use Area encoding at a particular code point is not 
unique. Thus, except with care amongst people who are aware of the 
particular encoding, there is no interoperability, such as with regular 
Unicode encoded characters.


However faced with a need for interoperability for my research project, 
I have found a solution making use of the Glyph Substitution capability 
of an OpenType font.


The solution is to invent my own encoding space. This sits on top of 
Unicode, could be (perhaps?) called markup, but it works!


I am hoping that at some future time the results of my research will 
become encoded as an International Standard, and that my encoding space 
will then after that become integrated into Unicode, thus achieving 
fully standardized unique interoperable encoding as part of Unicode. 
Quite a dream, but the way to achieve such a fully standardized unique 
interoperable encoding as part of Unicode is from a technological point 
of view, quite straightforward. There are details of this in the 
Accumulated Feedback on Public Review Issue #408.


https://www.unicode.org/review/pri408/

Yet having my encoding space in this manner is just something that I 
have done on my own initiative. Anybody can have his or her own encoding 
space if he or she so chooses. With a little care and consideration for 
others these encodings need not clash one with another and all could 
even coexist in one document.


Having my own encoding space has enabled me to make progress with my 
research project.


William Overington

Thursday 13 February 2020

Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Frédéric Grosshans via Unicode]

Le 12/02/2020 à 23:30, Michel Suignard a écrit :


Interesting that a single character is creating so much feedback, but 
it is not the first time.


Extrapolating from my own case, I guess it’s because hieroglyphs have a 
strong cultural significance — especially to people following unicode 
encoding — but that very few are qualified enough to emit a judgement, 
except maybe for this character.



It is true that the glyph in question was not in the base 
Hieroglyphica glyph set (that is why I referenced it as an 
'extension'). Its presence though raises an interesting point 
concerning abstraction of Egyptian hieroglyphs in general. All 
Egyptian hieroglyphs proposals imply some abstraction from the 
original evidences found on stone, wood, papyrus. At some point you 
have to decide some level where you feel confident that you created 
enough glyphs to allow meaningful interaction among Egyptologists. 
Because the set represents an extinct system you probably have to be a 
bit liberal in allowing some visual variants (because we can never be 
completely sure two similar looking signs are 100% equivalent in all 
their possible functions in the writing system and are never used in 
contrast).


This is clearly a problem difficult to tackle, with both extinct and 
logographic script, and hieroglyphics is both. It is obvious to me (and 
probably to anyone following unicode encoding) that the work you have 
been doing over the last few tear is a very difficult one. By the way, 
you expalin this approach very well explained on page 6, when you take 
the “disunification” on *U+14828 N-19-016 and the already encoded 
U+1321A N037A (Which would be N-19-017)


These abstract collections have started to appear in the first part of 
the nineteen century (Champollion starting in 1822). Interestingly 
these collections have started to be useful on their own even if in 
some case the main use of  parts is self-referencing, either because 
the glyph is a known mistake, or a ghost (character for which 
attestation is now firmly disputed). For example, it would be very 
difficult to create a new set not including the full Gardiner set, 
even if some of the characters are not necessarily justified. To a 
large degree, Hieroglyphica (and its related collection JSesh) has 
obtained that status as well. The IFAO (Institut Français 
d’Archéologie Orientatle) set is another one, although there is no 
modern font representing all of it (although many of the IFAO glyphs 
should not be encoded separately).


I  see this as variant of the “round-trip compatibility” principle of 
unicode adapted to ancient scripts, where the role of “legacy standards” 
is often taken by old scholarly litterature.



There is obviously no doubt that the character in question is a modern 
invention and not based on historical evidence. But interestingly 
enough it has started to be used as a pictogram with some content 
value, describing in fact an Egyptologist. It may not belong to that 
block, but it actually describes an use case and has been used a 
symbol in some technical publication.


I think the main problem I see with this character is that it seems to 
be sneaked in the main proposal. The text of the proposal seems to imply 
that the charcters proposed where either in use in ancient egypt or 
correspond to abstractions used by modern (=Champollion and later) 
egyptologists intended to reflect them.


This character does not fit in this picture, but that does not mean it 
does not belong to the hieroglyphic bloc: I think modern use of 
hieroglyphs (like e.g. the ones described in Hieroglyphs For Your Eyes 
Only: Samuel K. Lothrop and His Use of Ancient Egyptian as Cipher, by 
Pierre//http://www.mesoweb.com/articles/meyrat/Meyrat2014.pdf, 2014) 
should use the standard unicode encoding. There is a precedent in 
encoding modern characters in an extinct script with the encoding of 
Tolkienian characters U+16F1 to U+16F3 in the Runic block.


But I feel the encoding of such a character needs at the very to be 
explicitly discussed in the text of the proposal., e.g. by giving 
evidence of its modern use.


Concerning:

The question is then: was this well known about people reading 
hieroglyphs who checked this proposal? If not, it is very difficult to 
trust other hieroglyphs, especially if the first explanation is the good


one: some trap characters could actually look like real ones. Except 
of course if we accept some hieroglyphs for compatibility purpose, but 
this is not mentioned as a valid reason in any propoal yet.


> In my opinion, this is an invalid character, which should not be

> included in Unicode.

I agree.

You are allowed to have your own opinion, but I can tell you I have 
spent a lot of times checking attestation from many sources for the 
proposed repertoire. It won’t be perfect, but perfection (or a closer 
reach) would probably cost decades in study while preventing current 
research to have a communication platform. I 

Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Hans Åberg via Unicode]

> On 13 Feb 2020, at 00:26, Shawn Steele  wrote:
> 
>> From the point of view of Unicode, it is simpler: If the character is in use 
>> or have had use, it should be included somehow.
> 
> That bar, to me, seems too low.  Many things are only used briefly or in a 
> private context that doesn't really require encoding.

That is a private use area for more special use.

RE: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Shawn Steele via Unicode]

> From the point of view of Unicode, it is simpler: If the character is in use 
> or have had use, it should be included somehow.

That bar, to me, seems too low.  Many things are only used briefly or in a 
private context that doesn't really require encoding.

The hieroglyphs discussion is interesting because it presents them as living 
(in at least some sense) even though they're a historical script.  Apparently 
modern Egyptologists are coopting them for their own needs.  There are lots of 
emoji for professional fields.  In this case since hieroglyphs are pictorial, 
it seems they've blurred the lines between the script and emoji.  Given their 
field, I'd probably do the same thing.

I'm not opposed to the character if Egyptologists use it amongst themselves, 
though it does make me wonder if it belongs in this set?  Are there other 
"modern" hieroglyphs?  (Other than the errors, etc mentioned earlier, but 
rather glyphs that have been invented for modern use).

-Shawn 

Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Hans Åberg via Unicode]

> On 12 Feb 2020, at 23:30, Michel Suignard via Unicode  
> wrote:
> 
> These abstract collections have started to appear in the first part of the 
> nineteen century (Champollion starting in 1822). Interestingly these 
> collections have started to be useful on their own even if in some case the 
> main use of  parts is self-referencing, either because the glyph is a known 
> mistake, or a ghost (character for which attestation is now firmly disputed). 
> For example, it would be very difficult to create a new set not including the 
> full Gardiner set, even if some of the characters are not necessarily 
> justified. To a large degree, Hieroglyphica (and its related collection 
> JSesh) has obtained that status as well. The IFAO (Institut Français 
> d’Archéologie Orientatle) set is another one, although there is no modern 
> font representing all of it (although many of the IFAO glyphs should not be 
> encoded separately).
> 
> There is obviously no doubt that the character in question is a 
> modern invention and not based on historical evidence. But interestingly 
> enough it has started to be used as a pictogram with some content value, 
> describing in fact an Egyptologist. It may not belong to that block, but it 
> actually describes an use case and has been used a symbol in some technical 
> publication.

>From the point of view of Unicode, it is simpler: If the character is in use 
>or have had use, it should be included somehow.

RE: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Michel Suignard via Unicode]

Interesting that a single character is creating so much feedback, but it is not 
the first time.

It is true that the glyph in question was not in the base Hieroglyphica glyph 
set (that is why I referenced it as an 'extension'). Its presence though raises 
an interesting point concerning abstraction of Egyptian hieroglyphs in general. 
All Egyptian hieroglyphs proposals imply some abstraction from the original 
evidences found on stone, wood, papyrus. At some point you have to decide some 
level where you feel confident that you created enough glyphs to allow 
meaningful interaction among Egyptologists. Because the set represents an 
extinct system you probably have to be a bit liberal in allowing some visual 
variants (because we can never be completely sure two similar looking signs are 
100% equivalent in all their possible functions in the writing system and are 
never used in contrast).



These abstract collections have started to appear in the first part of the 
nineteen century (Champollion starting in 1822). Interestingly these 
collections have started to be useful on their own even if in some case the 
main use of  parts is self-referencing, either because the glyph is a known 
mistake, or a ghost (character for which attestation is now firmly disputed). 
For example, it would be very difficult to create a new set not including the 
full Gardiner set, even if some of the characters are not necessarily 
justified. To a large degree, Hieroglyphica (and its related collection JSesh) 
has obtained that status as well. The IFAO (Institut Français d’Archéologie 
Orientatle) set is another one, although there is no modern font representing 
all of it (although many of the IFAO glyphs should not be encoded separately).



There is obviously no doubt that the character in question 
[cid:image003.png@01D5E1B0.F18C11C0] is a modern invention and not based on 
historical evidence. But interestingly enough it has started to be used as a 
pictogram with some content value, describing in fact an Egyptologist. It may 
not belong to that block, but it actually describes an use case and has been 
used a symbol in some technical publication.



Concerning:

The question is then: was this well known about people reading hieroglyphs who 
checked this proposal? If not, it is very difficult to trust other hieroglyphs, 
especially if the first explanation is the good

one: some trap characters could actually look like real ones. Except of course 
if we accept some hieroglyphs for compatibility purpose, but this is not 
mentioned as a valid reason in any propoal yet.



> In my opinion, this is an invalid character, which should not be

> included in Unicode.



I agree.

You are allowed to have your own opinion, but I can tell you I have spent a lot 
of times checking attestation from many sources for the proposed repertoire. It 
won’t be perfect, but perfection (or a closer reach) would probably cost 
decades in study while preventing current research to have a communication 
platform. I don’t have a strong opinion about that character, but I would be 
very disappointed if people stop the review for what is a minor issue in the 
overall scheme.



Best regards



Michel





-Original Message-
From: Frédéric Grosshans 
Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2020 12:04 PM
To: Marius Spix ; Unicode 
Cc: Michel Suignard 
Subject: Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop



Le 12/02/2020 à 20:38, Marius Spix a écrit :

> That is a pretty interesting finding. This glyph was not part of

> http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18165-n4944-hieroglyphs.pdf



It is, as *U+1355A EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH A-12-051





> but has been first seen in

> http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19220-n5063-hieroglyphs.pdf

>

> The only "evidence" for this glyph I could find, is a stock photo,

> which is clearly made in the 21th century.

> https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-egyptian-hieroglyphics-with-notebook

> -digital-illustration-57472465.html

I don’t even think it could qualify, since I think the woman in this picture 
would correspond to another hieroglyph, from the B series (B-04), not a A-12.

>

> I know, that some font creators include so-called trap characters,

> similar to trap streets which are often found in maps to catch

> copyright violations. But it is also possible that the someone wanted

> to smuggle an easter-egg into Unicode or just test if the quality assurance 
> works.



The question is then: was this well known about people reading hieroglyphs who 
checked this proposal? If not, it is very difficult to trust other hieroglyphs, 
especially if the first explanation is the good

one: some trap characters could actually look like real ones. Except of course 
if we accept some hieroglyphs for compatibility purpose, but this is not 
mentioned as a valid reason in any propoal yet.



> In my opinion, this is an invalid character, which should not be

> include

Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Markus Scherer via Unicode]

On Wed, Feb 12, 2020 at 11:37 AM Marius Spix via Unicode <
unicode@unicode.org> wrote:

> In my opinion, this is an invalid character, which should not be
> included in Unicode.
>

Please remember that feedback that you want the committee to look at needs
to go through http://www.unicode.org/reporting.html

Best regards,
markus

Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Joe Becker via Unicode]

I assume this glyph was created to honor Cleo Huggins, the designer of 
Sonata at Adobe, who decades ago created a similar hieroglyph of a 
*woman* in front of her computer.


Joe

Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Frédéric Grosshans via Unicode]

Le 12/02/2020 à 20:38, Marius Spix a écrit :

That is a pretty interesting finding. This glyph was not part of
http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18165-n4944-hieroglyphs.pdf


It is, as *U+1355A EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH A-12-051



but has been first seen in
http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19220-n5063-hieroglyphs.pdf

The only "evidence" for this glyph I could find, is a stock photo,
which is clearly made in the 21th century.
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-egyptian-hieroglyphics-with-notebook-digital-illustration-57472465.html
I don’t even think it could qualify, since I think the woman in this 
picture would correspond to another hieroglyph, from the B series 
(B-04), not a A-12.


I know, that some font creators include so-called trap characters,
similar to trap streets which are often found in maps to catch copyright
violations. But it is also possible that the someone wanted to smuggle
an easter-egg into Unicode or just test if the quality assurance works.


The question is then: was this well known about people reading 
hieroglyphs who checked this proposal? If not, it is very difficult to 
trust other hieroglyphs, especially if the first explanation is the good 
one: some trap characters could actually look like real ones. Except of 
course if we accept some hieroglyphs for compatibility purpose, but this 
is not mentioned as a valid reason in any propoal yet.



In my opinion, this is an invalid character, which should not be
included in Unicode.


I agree.

  Frédéric



On Thu, 12 Feb 2020 19:12:14 +0100
Frédéric Grosshans via Unicode  wrote:


Dear Unicode list members (CC Michel Suignard),

    the Unicode proposal L2/20-068
,
“Revised draft for the encoding of an extended Egyptian Hieroglyphs
repertoire, Groups A to N” (
https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20068-n5128-ext-hieroglyph.pdf ) by
Michel Suignard contains a very interesting hieroglyph at position
*U+13579 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH A-12-054, which seems to represent a man
with a laptop, as can be obvious in the attached image.

    I am curious about the source of this hieroglyph: in the table
acompannying the document, its sources are said to be “Hieroglyphica
extension (various sources)” with number A58C and “Hornung & Schenkel
(2007, last modified in 2015)”, but with no number (A;), which seems
unique in the table. It leads me to think this glyph only exist in
some modern font, either as a joke, or for some computer related
modern use. Can anyone infirm or confirm this intuition ?

     Frédéric

Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Marius Spix via Unicode]

That is a pretty interesting finding. This glyph was not part of
http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18165-n4944-hieroglyphs.pdf
but has been first seen in
http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19220-n5063-hieroglyphs.pdf

The only "evidence" for this glyph I could find, is a stock photo,
which is clearly made in the 21th century.
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-egyptian-hieroglyphics-with-notebook-digital-illustration-57472465.html

I know, that some font creators include so-called trap characters,
similar to trap streets which are often found in maps to catch copyright
violations. But it is also possible that the someone wanted to smuggle
an easter-egg into Unicode or just test if the quality assurance works.

In my opinion, this is an invalid character, which should not be
included in Unicode.


On Thu, 12 Feb 2020 19:12:14 +0100
Frédéric Grosshans via Unicode  wrote:

> Dear Unicode list members (CC Michel Suignard),
> 
>    the Unicode proposal L2/20-068 
> , 
> “Revised draft for the encoding of an extended Egyptian Hieroglyphs 
> repertoire, Groups A to N” ( 
> https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20068-n5128-ext-hieroglyph.pdf ) by 
> Michel Suignard contains a very interesting hieroglyph at position 
> *U+13579 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH A-12-054, which seems to represent a man 
> with a laptop, as can be obvious in the attached image.
> 
>    I am curious about the source of this hieroglyph: in the table 
> acompannying the document, its sources are said to be “Hieroglyphica 
> extension (various sources)” with number A58C and “Hornung & Schenkel 
> (2007, last modified in 2015)”, but with no number (A;), which seems 
> unique in the table. It leads me to think this glyph only exist in
> some modern font, either as a joke, or for some computer related
> modern use. Can anyone infirm or confirm this intuition ?
> 
>     Frédéric
> 
> 

Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

[Frédéric Grosshans via Unicode]

Dear Unicode list members (CC Michel Suignard),

  the Unicode proposal L2/20-068 
, 
“Revised draft for the encoding of an extended Egyptian Hieroglyphs 
repertoire, Groups A to N” ( 
https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20068-n5128-ext-hieroglyph.pdf ) by 
Michel Suignard contains a very interesting hieroglyph at position 
*U+13579 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH A-12-054, which seems to represent a man 
with a laptop, as can be obvious in the attached image.


  I am curious about the source of this hieroglyph: in the table 
acompannying the document, its sources are said to be “Hieroglyphica 
extension (various sources)” with number A58C and “Hornung & Schenkel 
(2007, last modified in 2015)”, but with no number (A;), which seems 
unique in the table. It leads me to think this glyph only exist in some 
modern font, either as a joke, or for some computer related modern use. 
Can anyone infirm or confirm this intuition ?


   Frédéric