Medieval Unicode Font Initiative

A proposal for subranges within the Private Use Area of Unicode:
Supplements to the Latin alphabet for Medieval texts

 

Subrange 1. Mixed script characters: E000 - E0FF

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", "g", "r" and "v" in Insular script, and "d", "e", "m" and "t" in Uncial script.

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.

Unicode 3.2 does not recognise any of the characters below.

Glyph

Entity

Unicode

Descriptive name

&dunc;

E000

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

&gins;

0000

LATIN SMALL LETTER INSULAR G

&Gins;

0000

LATIN CAPITAL LETTER INSULAR G

&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 01BF LATIN LETTER WYNN and 01F7 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER WYNN. 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.

&Atopbar;

0000

LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OLD ENGLISH A WITH TOP BAR

&Coeng;

0000

LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OLD ENGLISH C

&Goeng;

0000

LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OLD ENGLISH G

&Hoeng;

0000

LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OLD ENGLISH H

&soeng;

0000

LATIN SMALL LETTER OLD ENGLISH S

&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.

Version 1.0, 15 June 2002 OEH