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

	ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N1642
DATE: 1997-09-18

DOC TYPE:	Expert contribution
TITLE:	Proposal to encode Cirth 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 Cirth 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. Cirth
1b. Addition of characters to existing block? Name?	No.
2. Number of characters	103
3. Proposed category	Category B.1
4. Proposed level of implementation and rationale	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?	No

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?	The Cirth enjoy both scholarly and popular use.
3a. The context of use for the proposed characters?	Used to write Khuzdul, 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 3380 - U+0001 337F 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?	Some of the Cirth look likeGermanic runes but they are considerably more numerous, and the phonetic systems used with them are entirely different.
7b. Where?
7c. Reference
8a. Can any of the characters be considered to be similar (in appearance or function) to an existing character?	One could say that the punctuation characters look like other characters, but it is advisable to encode them because they are used in a relatively systematic way in the writing system and it keeps things tidier.
8b. Where?
8c. Reference
9a. Combining characters or use of composite sequences included?	Yes, the last three characters are combining characters.
9b. List of composite sequences and their corresponding glyph images provided?	No
10. Characters with any special properties such as control function, etc. included?	No

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 Cirth 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 Cirth 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. It can be categorized 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 set a standard Cirth 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 Cirth. The last column is currently unused, and is reserved for future discoveries in the Tolkien manuscripts. The Cirth was and is used to write the languages Quenya, Sindarin, and Khuzdul. It has also been used to write English, as on the title page of The Lord Of The Rings.

General Principles of the Cirth script

The Cirth are a Runic-type alphabet, although they are not connected with Nordic runes except due to a general resemblance resulting from the constraints of letterforms carved in wood or stone. Some of the Cirth had two different forms, which seem to represent glyphic variants. The Cirth were written from left to right. No positional variants or non-spacing marks exist.

Ordering follws the presentation of the Eregion and Moria Cirth and the earliest Beleriand runes (from The Return of the King, Appendix E, and The Treason of Isengard, Appendix on Runes). Additional Cirth from Doriath and Noldor have been inserted into this order, as have other Cirth used for English, etc. Where duplication in letter names occurs, a modifier has been added to the name to differentiate it from the primary form. Pronouncible or meaningful names are not known for the Cirth, so their phonetic values are given in the names. Long vowels are written doubled.

Punctuation

Little is known about punctuation marks, though four have been identified: a single dot serves sometimes to separate letters or words; two vertical dots is used to break up groups longer than a word; three or four vertical dots are used at the beginning and ending of texts. Only three Cirth digits are extant; each is formed by placing a dot beneath an existing Certh, so that non-spacing dot has been encoded here.

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 after any LETTER.

U+xx80 CIRTH LETTER P
U+xx81 CIRTH LETTER B
U+xx82 CIRTH LETTER F
U+xx83 CIRTH LETTER V
U+xx84 CIRTH LETTER HW
U+xx85 CIRTH LETTER M
U+xx86 CIRTH LETTER MB
U+xx87 CIRTH LETTER SP
U+xx88 CIRTH LETTER SB
U+xx89 CIRTH LETTER SC
U+xx8A CIRTH LETTER SG
U+xx8B CIRTH LETTER T
U+xx8C CIRTH LETTER D
U+xx8D CIRTH LETTER TH
U+xx8E CIRTH LETTER DH
U+xx8F CIRTH LETTER N
U+xx90 CIRTH LETTER NDZH
U+xx91 CIRTH LETTER DORIAN KW
U+xx92 CIRTH LETTER DORIAN GW
U+xx93 CIRTH LETTER DORIAN KHW
U+xx94 CIRTH LETTER DORIAN GHW
U+xx95 CIRTH LETTER DORIAN L
U+xx96 CIRTH LETTER ENGLISH ND
U+xx97 CIRTH LETTER CH
U+xx98 CIRTH LETTER J
U+xx99 CIRTH LETTER SH
U+xx9A CIRTH LETTER ZH
U+xx9B CIRTH LETTER NJ
U+xx9C CIRTH LETTER K
U+xx9D CIRTH LETTER G
U+xx9E CIRTH LETTER KH
U+xx9F CIRTH LETTER GH
U+xxA0 CIRTH LETTER ENG
U+xxA1 CIRTH LETTER KW
U+xxA2 CIRTH LETTER GW
U+xxA3 CIRTH LETTER KHW
U+xxA4 CIRTH LETTER GHW
U+xxA5 CIRTH LETTER NGW
U+xxA6 CIRTH LETTER NW
U+xxA7 CIRTH LETTER DORIAN Z
U+xxA8 CIRTH LETTER R
U+xxA9 CIRTH LETTER RH
U+xxAA CIRTH LETTER L
U+xxAB CIRTH LETTER LH
U+xxAC CIRTH LETTER NG
U+xxAD CIRTH LETTER S
U+xxAE CIRTH LETTER KHUZDUL GLOTTAL STOP
U+xxAF CIRTH LETTER Z
U+xxB0 CIRTH LETTER KHUZDUL NG
U+xxB1 CIRTH LETTER ND
U+xxB2 CIRTH LETTER EI
U+xxB3 CIRTH LETTER IU
U+xxB4 CIRTH LETTER I
U+xxB5 CIRTH LETTER KHUZDUL Y
U+xxB6 CIRTH LETTER KHUZDUL HY
U+xxB7 CIRTH LETTER U
U+xxB8 CIRTH LETTER UU
U+xxB9 CIRTH LETTER W
U+xxBA CIRTH LETTER UE
U+xxBB CIRTH LETTER UI
U+xxBC CIRTH LETTER E
U+xxBD CIRTH LETTER EE
U+xxBE CIRTH LETTER A
U+xxBF CIRTH LETTER AA
U+xxC0 CIRTH LETTER AI
U+xxC1 CIRTH LETTER AU
U+xxC2 CIRTH LETTER AY
U+xxC3 CIRTH LETTER AE
U+xxC4 CIRTH LETTER EA
U+xxC5 CIRTH LETTER EW
U+xxC6 CIRTH LETTER O
U+xxC7 CIRTH LETTER OO
U+xxC8 CIRTH LETTER OE
U+xxC9 CIRTH LETTER NOLDORIAN O
U+xxCA CIRTH LETTER NOLDORIAN OO
U+xxCB CIRTH LETTER IO
U+xxCC CIRTH LETTER EU
U+xxCD CIRTH LETTER OU
U+xxCE CIRTH LETTER NOLDORIAN OE
U+xxCF CIRTH LETTER KHUZDUL N
U+xxD0 CIRTH LETTER H
U+xxD1 CIRTH LETTER KHUZDUL LEFT-POINTING SCHWA
U+xxD2 CIRTH LETTER KHUZDUL RIGHT-POINTING SCHWA
U+xxD3 CIRTH LETTER DORIAN O
U+xxD4 CIRTH LETTER KHUZDUL PS
U+xxD5 CIRTH LETTER KHUZDUL TS
U+xxD6 CIRTH MODIFIER LETTER H
U+xxD7 CIRTH ENGLISH THE
U+xxD8 CIRTH AMPERSAND
U+xxD9 CIRTH NOLDORIAN L
U+xxDA CIRTH ENGLISH OF
U+xxDB CIRTH LETTER Y
U+xxDC CIRTH LETTER VARIANT Y
U+xxDD CIRTH LETTER YY
U+xxDE CIRTH LETTER NOLDORIAN OOE
U+xxDF CIRTH LETTER NOLDORIAN OE
U+xxE0 CIRTH SEPARATOR SINGLE DOT
U+xxE1 CIRTH SEPARATOR DOUBLE DOT
U+xxE2 CIRTH SEPARATOR TRIPLE DOT
U+xxE3 CIRTH START OR END OF TEXT
U+xxE4 CIRTH SEPARATOR DOUBLE PIPE
U+xxE5 CIRTH COMBINING NASAL MARK
U+xxE6 CIRTH COMBINING LENGTH MARK
U+xxE7 CIRTH NUMERIC DOT
U+xxE8 (This position shall not be used)
U+xxE9 (This position shall not be used)
U+xxEA (This position shall not be used)
U+xxEB (This position shall not be used)
U+xxEC (This position shall not be used)
U+xxED (This position shall not be used)
U+xxEE (This position shall not be used)
U+xxEF (This position shall not be used)
U+xxF0 (This position shall not be used)
U+xxF1 (This position shall not be used)
U+xxF2 (This position shall not be used)
U+xxF3 (This position shall not be used)
U+xxF4 (This position shall not be used)
U+xxF5 (This position shall not be used)
U+xxF6 (This position shall not be used)
U+xxF7 (This position shall not be used)
U+xxF8 (This position shall not be used)
U+xxF9 (This position shall not be used)
U+xxFA (This position shall not be used)
U+xxFB (This position shall not be used)
U+xxFC (This position shall not be used)
U+xxFD (This position shall not be used)
U+xxFE (This position shall not be used)
U+xxFF (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 Cirth script

Punctuation