JTC1/SC2/WG2 N4956 2018-06-01 Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set International Organization for Standardization Organisation Internationale de Normalisation Международная организация по стандартизации Doc Type: Working Group Document Title: Analysis of Shuishu character repertoire Source: Andrew West and Eiso Chan Status: Individual Contribution Action: For consideration by JTC1/SC2/WG2 and UTC Date: 2018-06-01 Contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 2 2. Published Sources of Shuishu Characters........................................................................................ 5 2.1 Zhāng Jūnrú 1980 (ZJR 1980) .......................................................................................................... 5 2.2 Nishida Tatsuo 2001 (Nishida 2001) ............................................................................................ 5 2.3 Wéi Shìfāng 2007 (WSF 2007) ......................................................................................................... 5 2.4 Wéi Zōnglín 2011 (WZL 2011) ........................................................................................................ 9 2.5 Mojikyo Font ........................................................................................................................................ 10 2.6 Shuishu Door Charms and Amulet .............................................................................................. 10 3. Discussion of Issues .............................................................................................................................. 16 3.1 Script, Block and Character Names ............................................................................................. 16 3.2 Repertoire ............................................................................................................................................. 16 3.3 Variant and Alternative Glyphs..................................................................................................... 17 3.4 Character Order .................................................................................................................................. 19 3.5 Character Names ................................................................................................................................ 19 3.6 Font .......................................................................................................................................................... 19 4. Comparative Table of Shuishu Characters from All Sources ................................................. 20 5. Appendix I: Zhāng Jūnrú 1980 ........................................................................................................ 213 6. Appendix II: Nishida Tatsuo 2001 ................................................................................................. 218 7. Appendix III: Wéi Shìfāng 2007 ...................................................................................................... 224 8. Appendix IV: Wéi Zōnglín 2011 ...................................................................................................... 274 8.1 Glossary of Shuishu Logograms .................................................................................................. 274 8.2 List of 1,767 Shuishu Glyphs ........................................................................................................ 294 9. Appendix V: Mojikyo Font Mappings ............................................................................................ 321 10. Appendix VI: Digitized Shuishu manuscripts ........................................................................ 335 JTC1/SC2/WG2 N4956 1. Introduction The Sui script [le¹³ sui³³], known in Chinese as shuǐshū 水书 “Sui writing”, is a logographic writing system for the Sui language of the Sui people in Guizhou province of China. The Sui script has traditionally been used by Sui ritual masters (Shuǐshū xiānshēng 水书先生) for ritual and divination purposes. A set of 486 Shuishu logograms and 47 Shuishu radicals were included in ISO/IEC 10646:2017 PDAM 2.2 at 1B300 through 1B4E5 and 1B500 through 1B52E respectively (see http://www.unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4922-5theditionPdam2-2-charts.pdf pages 54– 62). The repertoire of the proposed logograms is based on the final proposal submitted by China as WG2 N4758 (http://www.unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4758-Proposal%20for%20 encoding%20Shuishu2016Sep3.pdf), and the set of radicals is based on a document by Michael Everson submitted as WG2 N4839 (http://www.unicode.org/wg2/docs/n4839- shuishu.pdf). The present document presents a preliminary analysis of the proposed repertoire of Shuishu logograms in PDAM 2.2, and compares this repertoire with the following four previously published sets of Shuishu logograms: 1. Zhāng Jūnrú 张均如. Shuǐyǔ jiǎnzhì 水语简志 [Sketch of the Sui Language]. Beijing: Minzu chubanshe, 1980. 2. Nishida Tatsuo 西田龍雄. Sui moji 水文字 [Sui script]; in Kō no Rokurō 國河野六郎, Chino Eiichi 千野栄一, Nishida Tatsuo eds., Sekai moji jiten 世界文字辞典 [Dictionary of world scripts] pp. 523–526. Vol. 7 of Kamei Takashi 亀井孝, Kō no Rokurō, Chino Eiichi eds., Gengogaku daijiten 三省堂言語学大辞典 [The Sanseido Encyclopaedia of Linguistics]. Tōkyō : Sanseidō, 2001. ISBN 978-4-385-15177-9 2. Wéi Shìfāng 韦世方. Shuǐshū chángyòng zìdiǎn 水书常用字典 [Dictionary of everyday Shuishu characters]. Guiyang: Guizhou minzu chubanshe, 2007. ISBN 978-7-5412-1478-3 3. Wéi Zōnglín 韦宗林. Shìdú pángluò de wénmíng: Shuǐzú wénzì yánjiū 释读旁落的文明：水 族文字研究 [Interpreting a fallen civilization: Research into the script of the Sui people]. Beijing: Minzu chubanshe, 2011. ISBN 978-7-105-11972-1 We also provide mappings from the Mojikyo font set of 145 Shuishu logograms. Page 2 JTC1/SC2/WG2 N4956 Summary of Recommendations The Sui script has a long and extensive history of use in writing ritual and divination manuscripts, and thousands of Sui manuscripts dating from at least the 16th century up to the late 20th century are in existence (see Appendix VI for a listing of digitized Sui manuscripts). The Sui script has also been well-studied over the past forty years, and the core repertoire of Sui logograms is well-known, with a dictionary of 471 frequently-used Sui logograms compiled by Wéi Shìfāng having been published in 2007. We consider that encoding the Sui script is essential for scholars working on Sui ritual manuscripts, and that the academic understanding of the Sui script is sufficiently mature to allow for the encoding to progress. However, we believe that the repertoire of 486 Shuishu logograms proposed in PDAM 2.2 still has some issues that need to be resolved, and a revised proposal needs to be submitted. We make the following recommendations: Use the native name "Sui" instead of the Chinese name "Shuishu" (水书 = "Sui writing") for the script name, block name and character names. In principle, an international character encoding standard should use the native script name, and "Sui" is also the common name for the people and language in English, whereas the Chinese term "Shuishu" is not widely used in English. Expand the repertoire of proposed characters to include all non-unifiable logograms given in Wéi Shìfāng's 2007 dictionary and other sources discussed in this document. Wéi Shìfāng's dictionary has had an important influence over the past ten years, and it is essential for scholars and ordinary users alike to be able to represent all of the logograms included in his dictionary as encoded characters in electronic text. Encode as separate characters those glyphs that have a different origin and completely different graphic shape. We think that it is appropriate to encode alternative glyphs representing the same Sui word separately if the glyph shapes are clearly unrelated and not unifiable (e.g. the glyphs 猫 used for 弼星 “right assistant star”), and if there is evidence that each glyph form is attested in multiple primary sources. On the other hand, where a logogram is attested with various related glyph shapes (e.g. the glyphs used for 木 “wood”), then it is reasonable to unify the various shapes, and just encode a single character with the most common glyph form. Produce a completely new professionally-designed font for use in the code charts. The font used in PDAM 2.2 is not of high enough quality to visually represent the Sui script in an international character encoding standard. We recommend taking the font used for Wéi Zōnglín's 2011 study of Sui writing as a model for designing a modern computer font that is suitable for use both on the printed page and on the computer screen. Page 3 JTC1/SC2/WG2 N4956 Fig. 1: A 16th century Sui manuscript Zérì lìsuàn shū 擇日曆算書 https://eap.bl.uk/archive-file/EAP143-1-1-43 Image 18 Page 4 JTC1/SC2/WG2 N4956 2. Published Sources of Shuishu Characters Here we introduce the published sources of Shuishu characters that we have been able to examine so far, as well as the Mojikyo font set of Shuishu characters. 2.1 Zhāng Jūnrú 1980 (ZJR 1980) Zhāng Jūnrú’s 1980 description of the Sui language (Shuǐyǔ jiǎnzhì 水语简志) includes a single page (p. 87) listing a sample of 67 common Shuishu logograms, mostly calendrical terms. See Appendix I for a complete listing of these characters. 65 of the 67 characters correspond to PDAM 2.2 logograms, most with the same or unifiably similar glyphs. Only two characters are not included in the PDAM 2.2 repertoire