Proposal to encode Tengwar in Plane 1 of ISO/IEC 10646-2

	ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N1641
DATE: 1997-09-18

DOC TYPE:	Expert contribution
TITLE:	Proposal to encode Tengwar in Plane 1 of ISO/IEC 10646-2
SOURCE:	Michael Everson, EGT (IE)
PROJECT:	JTC1.02.18.02
STATUS:	Proposal.
ACTION ID:	FYI
DUE DATE:	--
DISTRIBUTION:	Worldwide
MEDIUM:	Paper and web
NO. OF PAGES:	5

A. Administrative
1. Title	Proposal to encode Tengwar in Plane 1 of ISO/IEC 10646-2
2. Requester's name	Michael Everson
3. Requester type	Expert request
4. Submission date	1997-09-18
5. Requester's reference
6a. Completion	This is a complete proposal.
6b. More information to be provided?	No

B. Technical -- General
1a. New script? Name?	Yes. Tengwar
1b. Addition of characters to existing block? Name?	No.
2. Number of characters	93
3. Proposed category	Category B.1
4. Proposed level of implementation and rationale	Level 2 and Level 3
5a. Character names included in proposal?	Yes
5b. Character names in accordance with guidelines?	Yes
5c. Character shapes reviewable?	Yes
6a. Who will provide computerized font?	Michael Everson, Everson Gunn Teoranta
6b. Font currently available?	Michael Everson, Everson Gunn Teoranta
6c. Font format?	TrueType
7a. Are references (to other character sets, dictionaries, descriptive texts, etc.) provided?	Yes.
7b. Are published examples (such as samples from newspapers, magazines, or other sources) of use of proposed characters attached?	No
8. Does the proposal address other aspects of character data processing?	Yes

C. Technical -- Justification
1. Contact with the user community?	Yes. There are several Internet discussion lists and web sites.
2. Information on the user community?	Tengwar enjoys both scholarly and popular use.
3a. The context of use for the proposed characters?	Used to write Quenya, Sindarin, English, and other languages.
3b. Reference
4a. Proposed characters in current use?	Yes
4b. Where?	By scholars and enthusiasts.
5a. Characters should be encoded entirely in BMP?	No. Positions U+0001 CC00 - U+0001 CC7F are proposed for the encoding.
5b. Rationale	Accordance with the Roadmap.
6. Should characters be kept in a continuous range?	Yes
7a. Can the characters be considered a presentation form of an existing character or character sequence?	No.
7b. Where?
7c. Reference
8a. Can any of the characters be considered to be similar (in appearance or function) to an existing character?	No
8b. Where?
8c. Reference
9a. Combining characters or use of composite sequences included?	Yes
9b. List of composite sequences and their corresponding glyph images provided?	Characters identified on the code table with dotted circles are combining characters.
10. Characters with any special properties such as control function, etc. included?	Yes. The numerals have right-to-left properties while the rest of the script has left-to-right.

D. SC2/WG2 Administrative To be completed by SC2/WG2
1. Relevant SC 2/WG 2 document numbers:
2. Status (list of meeting number and corresponding action or disposition)
3. Additional contact to user communities, liaison organizations etc.
4. Assigned category and assigned priority/time frame
Other Comments

The Tengwar script was invented by the philologist and author J. R. R. Tolkien as part of the mythological world he created, and was widely popularized through his work, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, etc. Along with a family of artificial languages and a large corpus of etymological data describing their relationships, the Tengwar script has attracted the attention of a large community of linguists and other enthusiasts interested in this expression of Tolkien's expertise in historical and comparative linguistics. The Tengwar shouldbe treated as a Category D (Attested Extinct) alphabet: there is a relatively limited corpus, and a relatively small (but existent) scholarly body studying it. In order to provide a standard Tengwar character coding for such scholars and enthusiasts, it has been suggested that this character set be included into the Unicode standard and ISO 10646.

8 columns are reserved to encode the Tengwar. The last column is currently unused, and is reserved for future discoveries in the Tolkien manuscripts. Character names derive from Tolkien's published writings; as usual, long vowels are written double.

General Principles of the Tengwar script

The Tengwar script is a system of consonantal signs without strictly fixed values; their glyphic structure comprises a matrix of potential phonetic relationships, rather than a set of fixed relationships between sound and character. The primary letters (U+xx00 - U+xx17) are formed of a telco 'stem' and a l™va 'bow'; raising the stem might indicate spirantization of a consonant, or doubling the bow might indicate voicing. Consonants are modified by tehtar 'signs', described below.

A series of "stemless consonants" have been encoded. STEMLESS OORE is used as DIGIT ZERO; STEMLESS VILYA is used as DIGIT ONE; STEMLESS ANNA is used as a vowel in the mode of Beleriand; STEMLESS VALA is as yet unattested, but is included here because of the inherent structure of the script.

Tengwar are written from left-to-right. Tengwar numerals are written from right-to-left (the least significant digit is on the left). The DECIMAL BASE MARK and DUODECIMAL BASE MARK are applied to the digits to indicate what the arithmetic base is used; the DUODECIMAL LEAST SIGNIFICANT DIGIT MARK is used on the least significant digit in a duodecimal expression. The numeric marks are not generally considered optional.

No positional variants of the letters exist. Like Arabic, the script is founded on calligraphic handwriting, and many ligatures may be required for high-quality rendering -- though unligatured forms may often be acceptable. No ligatures are encoded here.

Vowels and Other Marks of Pronunciation

Non-spacing marks, generically called tehtar 'signs', indicate vowels or other modifications of consonantal letters. Tehtar are placed above or below consonants, or atop "carriers" when no consonant is present in the required position. The occurrence of a character in the tehtar range, depicted with relation to a dashed circle, constitutes an assertion that this character is intended to be applied via some process to the consonantal character that precedes it in the text stream. General rules for applying non-spacing marks are given in Section 2.5 of the Unicode Standard. In ISO 10646, Level 2 encoding is intended. See the remarks on Modes below.

The SHORT CARRIER simply bears the vowel tehta; the LONG CARRIER indicates that the vowel was long; this can also be done by doubling the vowel sign.

Modes

The morphological structure of a language determines the "mode" in which the Tengwar script is used for it. For instance, the tehtar are placed above or below the preceding consonant in languages in which words tend to end in a vowel; but they are placed above or below the following consonant in languages in which words tend to end in a consonant (compare Quenya nelde 'three', neltildi 'triangle' with Sindarin neled and nelthil.). In accordance with Unicode specifications, however, the tehtar are encoded as non-spacing characters, and so must follow the consonant over which they appear. For Sindarin, this requires that the logical order of backing store does not reflect its true syllabic structure. For instance, the Quenya examples here are encoded NUUMEN-ACUTE-ALDA-ACUTE (n-e-ld-e), and NUUMEN-ACUTE-LAMBE-TINCO-AMATICSE-ALDA-AMATICSE (n-e-l-t-i-ld-i); the Sindarin encoded NUUMEN-LAMBE-ACUTE-ANDO-ACUTE (n-l-e-d-e), and NUUMEN-LAMBE-ACUTE-THUULE-LAMBE-AMATICSE (n-l-e-th-l-i). English is generally written according to a Sindarin-type mode; Italian would be written according to a Quenya-type mode. This inconsistency of phonetic representation and encoding in the backing store is a function of the script's unique representation of modalities which must be reckoned with apart from the character set itself. Smart inputting methods, such as are used for some Southeast Asian Brahmic scripts, could solve the problem for Sindarin-type mode inputting. In the mode of Beleriand, where the tehtar are not used, but full vowels, the Sindarin examples are written: OORE-YANTA-LAMBE-YANTA-ANDO (n-e-l-e-d) and OORE-YANTA-LAMBE-THUULE-SHORT CARRIER-LAMBE (n-e-l-th-i-l). Mapping software for conversion of standard-mode and Beleriand-mode Sindarin will be requisite.

Punctuation

Tengwar punctuation characters are considered to be unique to the script and are coded in the Tengwar block. Som composition of punctuation occurs in Tengwar: DOUBLE PUSTA can be followed by SECTION MARK, LONG SECTION MARK, PUSTA, and DOUBLE PUSTA.

Sometimes word space is not used; word separation may be achieved in that case with U+200B, ZERO WIDTH SPACE. Hyphenation is not used; words may be broken before any LETTER.

Encoding Structure

The Tengwar block is divided into the following ranges:

	U+xx01 -> xx17 Consonants
	U+xx18 -> xx33 Miscellaneous letters
	U+xx40 -> xx4F Vowel signs
	U+xx50 -> xx53 Punctuation
	U+xx54 -> xx55 unassigned
	U+xx56 -> xx57 Additional vowel signs
	U+xx58 -> xx59 unassigned
	U+xx5A         Additional vowel sign
	U+xx5B         unassigned
	U+xx5C -> xx5D Miscellaneous letters
	U+xx5E -> xx5F unassigned
	U+xx60 -> xx61 Punctuation
	U+xx62 -> xx6B Numerals
	U+xx6C -> xx6E Numeric modifiers
	U+xx6F -> xx7F unassigned

U+xx00	TENGWAR LETTER TINCO
U+xx01	TENGWAR LETTER PARMA
U+xx02	TENGWAR LETTER CALMA
U+xx03	TENGWAR LETTER QUESSE
U+xx04	TENGWAR LETTER ANDO
U+xx05	TENGWAR LETTER UMBAR
U+xx06	TENGWAR LETTER ANGA
U+xx07	TENGWAR LETTER UNGWE
U+xx08	TENGWAR LETTER THUULE (suule)
U+xx09	TENGWAR LETTER FORMEN
U+xx0A	TENGWAR LETTER HARMA (aha)
U+xx0B	TENGWAR LETTER HWESTA
U+xx0C	TENGWAR LETTER ANTO
U+xx0D	TENGWAR LETTER AMPA
U+xx0E	TENGWAR LETTER ANCA
U+xx0F	TENGWAR LETTER UNQUE
U+xx10	TENGWAR LETTER NUUMEN
U+xx11	TENGWAR LETTER MALTA
U+xx12	TENGWAR LETTER NOLDO (ngoldo)
U+xx13	TENGWAR LETTER NWALME (ngwalme)
U+xx14	TENGWAR LETTER OORE
U+xx15	TENGWAR LETTER VALA
U+xx16	TENGWAR LETTER ANNA
U+xx17	TENGWAR LETTER VILYA (wilya)
U+xx18	TENGWAR LETTER ROOMEN
U+xx19	TENGWAR LETTER ARDA
U+xx1A	TENGWAR LETTER LAMBE
U+xx1B	TENGWAR LETTER ALDA
U+xx1C	TENGWAR LETTER SILME
U+xx1D	TENGWAR LETTER SILME NUQUERNA
U+xx1E	TENGWAR LETTER AARE (aaze, esse)
U+xx1F	TENGWAR LETTER AARE NUQUERNA (aaze n., esse n.)
U+xx20	TENGWAR LETTER HYARMEN
U+xx21	TENGWAR LETTER HWESTA SINDARINWA
U+xx22	TENGWAR LETTER YANTA
U+xx23	TENGWAR LETTER UURE
U+xx24	TENGWAR LETTER HALLA
U+xx25	TENGWAR LETTER SHORT CARRIER
U+xx26	TENGWAR LETTER LONG CARRIER
U+xx27	TENGWAR LETTER ANNA SINDARINWA
U+xx28	TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED THUULE
U+xx29	TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED FORMEN
U+xx2A	TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED HARMA
U+xx2B	TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED HWESTA
U+xx2C	TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED ANTO
U+xx2D	TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED AMPA
U+xx2E	TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED ANCA
U+xx2F	TENGWAR LETTER EXTENDED UNQUE
U+xx30	TENGWAR LETTER STEMLESS OORE (digit zero)
U+xx31	TENGWAR LETTER STEMLESS VALA
U+xx32	TENGWAR LETTER STEMLESS ANNA
U+xx33	TENGWAR LETTER STEMLESS VILYA (digit one)
U+xx34	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx35	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx36	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx37	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx38	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx39	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx3A	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx3B	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx3C	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx3D	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx3E	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx3F	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx40	TENGWAR SIGN THREE DOTS ABOVE
U+xx41	TENGWAR SIGN THREE DOTS BELOW
U+xx42	TENGWAR SIGN TWO DOTS ABOVE
U+xx43	TENGWAR SIGN TWO DOTS BELOW
U+xx44	TENGWAR SIGN AMATICSE (dot above)
U+xx45	TENGWAR SIGN NUNTICSE (dot below)
U+xx46	TENGWAR SIGN ACUTE (andaith, long mark)
U+xx47	TENGWAR SIGN DOUBLE ACUTE
U+xx48	TENGWAR SIGN RIGHT CURL
U+xx49	TENGWAR SIGN DOUBLE RIGHT CURL
U+xx4A	TENGWAR SIGN LEFT CURL
U+xx4B	TENGWAR SIGN DOUBLE LEFT CURL
U+xx4C	TENGWAR SIGN NASALIZER
U+xx4D	TENGWAR SIGN DOUBLER
U+xx4E	TENGWAR SIGN TILDE
U+xx4F	TENGWAR SIGN BREVE
U+xx50	TENGWAR PUSTA (putta, stop)
U+xx51	TENGWAR DOUBLE PUSTA (putta)
U+xx52	TENGWAR EXCLAMATION MARK
U+xx53	TENGWAR QUESTION MARK
U+xx54	TENGWAR SECTION MARK
U+xx55	TENGWAR LONG SECTION MARK
U+xx56	TENGWAR SIGN LONG CARRIER BELOW
U+xx57	TENGWAR SIGN DOUBLE ACUTE BELOW
U+xx58	TENGWAR SIGN RIGHT CURL BELOW
U+xx59	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx5A	TENGWAR SIGN LEFT CURL BELOW
U+xx5B	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx5C	TENGWAR SIGN LEFT FOLLOWING SILME
U+xx5D	TENGWAR SIGN RIGHT FOLLOWING SILME
U+xx5E	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx5F	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx60	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx61	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx62	TENGWAR DIGIT TWO
U+xx63	TENGWAR DIGIT THREE
U+xx64	TENGWAR DIGIT FOUR
U+xx65	TENGWAR DIGIT FIVE
U+xx66	TENGWAR DIGIT SIX
U+xx67	TENGWAR DIGIT SEVEN
U+xx68	TENGWAR DIGIT EIGHT
U+xx69	TENGWAR DIGIT NINE
U+xx6A	TENGWAR DUODECIMAL DIGIT TEN
U+xx6B	TENGWAR DUODECIMAL DIGIT ELEVEN
U+xx6C	TENGWAR DECIMAL BASE MARK
U+xx6D	TENGWAR DUODECIMAL BASE MARK
U+xx6E	TENGWAR DUODECIMAL LEAST SIGNIFICANT DIGIT MARK
U+xx6F	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx70	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx71	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx72	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx73	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx74	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx75	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx76	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx77	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx78	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx79	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx7A	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx7B	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx7C	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx7D	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx7E	(This position shall not be used)
U+xx7F	(This position shall not be used)

HTML Michael Everson, everson@indigo.ie, http://www.indigo.ie/egt, Dublin, 1997-09-18

A. Administrative

B. Technical -- General

C. Technical -- Justification

D. SC2/WG2 Administrative

General Principles of the Tengwar script

Vowels and Other Marks of Pronunciation

Modes

Punctuation

Encoding Structure