ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N4131R L2/11-296R 2011-10-28 Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set International Organization for Standardization Organisation Internationale de Normalisation Международная организация по стандартизации Doc Type: Working Group Document Title: Proposal for encoding the Caucasian Albanian script in the SMP of the UCS Source: UC Berkeley Script Encoding Initiative (Universal Scripts Project) Authors: Michael Everson and Jost Gippert Status: Liaison Contribution Action: For consideration by JTC1/SC2/WG2 and UTC Date: 2011-10-28 1. Introduction. Tradition has it that the Armenian bishop Mesrop Mashtocʿ devised a script in the early fifth century CE not only for the Armenians, but also for the Caucasian Albanians, who lived in an area northeast of Armenia. (Causasian Albania is not the same as European Albania.) The Caucasian Albanian script was recognized in 1937 on the basis of an alphabet list in an Armenian manuscript in the Matenadaran collection in Yerevan and confirmed by a few inscriptions on artifacts excavated in north - west Azerbaijan around 1950 (Abuladze 1938:69–71, Šanidze 1938:47, Gippert et al 2009–10 §4.3ff.). In the 1990s two palimpsest manuscripts containing the Caucasian Albanian script were discovered by Zaza Aleksidze in St Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai. These undated manuscripts appear to have been written during the seventh century CE, because the Caucasian Albanian state was conquered by the Arabs and their autonomous church was absorbed into the Armenian patriarchate in the 8th century CE (Aleksidzé and Mahé 1997:517, 2001; Aleksidze 2003). Between 1999 to 2008, the palimpsests were deciphered and the structure of the Caucasian Albanian language and script established by Gippert, Schulze, Aleksidzé, and Mahé who also demonstrated that Caucasian Albanian was closely related to, if not an ancestor of, the present-day Udi language. The abecedary in the Matenadaran ms. 7117, indicates that the Caucasian Albanian script consists of 52 characters, 49 of which are found in the Sinai palimpsests. The texts of the palimpsests, which comprise about half of the Gospel of John and several passages from other books of the Bible, mostly from the New Testament, have provided corroboration of the abecedary, where the sequence of characters within the alphabet is confirmed by their numeric usage. It is clear that the alphabet was designed to reflect the sound system of Caucasian Albanian as accurately as possible, just as the Armenian and Georgian alphabets were phonologically based. The Caucasian Albanian alphabet has Greek characteristics—such as the use of an ou digraph for /u/ (compare Greek ΛΟΥΚΑΣ loukas ‘Luke’, Armenian ԼՈՒԿԱՍ łowkas, Old Georgian ႪႭჃႩႠ lowḳa, and Caucasian Albanian !ȨȱȠ& lowḳas) and the placement of a “long e” character at the place of Greek η—but it also has features similar to those of the Armenian alphabet, at least in terms of alphabet arrangement. 2. Processing. Caucasian Albanian is a simple alphabetic script written from left to right horizontally. The digraphs Ȩȱ ow and ȱ üw are sometimes written as ligatures, though this does not affect the encoding. Spaces are not used to separate words in the manuscript, though modern editions use space for the better readability. Letters behave like Armenian letters do for the purposes of line-breaking. An abbreviation sign is used spanning two letters in a way similar to that of U+2CEF COPTIC COMBINING NI ABOVE does; an example is K͡S krisṭos. It is recommended to use the generic diacritic U+035E 1 COMBINING DOUBLE MACRON for this, and to let the font deal with the swash ends of the diacritic in font styles that require it. 3. Character names and repertoire. The names used for the characters here are based on Jost Gippert’s normalized reconstructions of the names based on the Armenian spellings given in Mat. 7117. The phonetic value of U+1054B CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER CYAY , U+1054F CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER DZYAY and U+10551 CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER JAYN ȧ are uncertain, however, as they appear only in the alphabet list in Mat. 7117. The glyph for U+1055E CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER IWN has a right-hand portion added to it in order to differentiate it from U+10548 CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER AOR , although the right-hand portion does not appear in the alphabet or in the palimpsests. The glyph for U+1055E is based on the glyph in The Caucasian Albanian Palimpsests of Mount Sinai. Below are all the letters of the Caucasian Albanian alphabet with their transcriptional value found in the Sinai palimsests, and numeric value. abgdezēžtć̣yź 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 20 30 i ʕ l n’ x d’ c̣ ʒ́ ḳl’ h x̣ 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 200 300 400 500 600 åćč̣c’ m q̇nʒ’š ǯoṭ’ 700 800 900 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000 f ʒ čṗġrsvṭśüc̣’ 10K 20K 30K 40K 50K 60K 70K 80K 90K 100K 200K 300K cwpk 400K 500K 600K 700K 4. Numerals. Script-specific numerals are not known. Letters used as numbers are marked with a bent line above and/or below the letter, so or or = 2. When more than two or three letters are surmounted by a numeric mark, the line is drawn over all of them. (See figures 6 and 7.) This behaviour is similar to that found in Coptic, and the same mechanism is recommended: • use U+0304 COMBINING MACRON and/or U+0331 COMBINING MACRON BELOW for a single letter • use U+FE24 COMBINING MACRON LEFT HALF and U+FE25 COMBINING MACRON RIGHT HALF for two letters and U+FE26 COMBINING CONJOINING MACRON for three or more letters • use a new U+FE2B COMBINING MACRON LEFT HALF BELOW and a new U+FE2C COMBINING MACRON RIGHT HALF BELOW for two letters along with U+FE2D COMBINING CONJOINING MACRON BELOW for three or more letters (this is currently being ballotted at U+FE2B). 2 5. Punctuation. In the manuscript a middle dot, a separating colon, and a sort of apostrophe can be seen. Since the evidence of the palimpsests is not entirely clear, it is suggested that generic punctuation characters be used (at least until such time as it can be demonstrated that these are not sufficient): U+00B7 MIDDLE DOT (or U+2E33 RAISED DOT), U+003A COLON, U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK. A PARAGRAPHOS is also found, which should be represented by U+2E11 REVERSED FORKED PARAGRAPHOS. One special mark is used (see Figure 9) to indicate text that is a citation from the psalms; a script-specific CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN CITATION MARK is proposed to represent this. 6. Ordering. Ordering is as in the code chart, and follows the alphabetic order given in the sources. 7. Unicode Character Properties FE2B;COMBINING MACRON LEFT HALF BELOW;Mn;220;NSM;;;;;N;;;;; FE2C;COMBINING MACRON RIGHT HALF BELOW;Mn;220;NSM;;;;;N;;;;; 10530;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER ALT;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10531;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER BET;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10532;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER GIM;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10533;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER DAT;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10534;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER EB;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10535;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER ZARL;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10536;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER EYN;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10537;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER ZHIL;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10538;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER TAS;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10539;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER CHA;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1053A;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER YOWD;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1053B;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER ZHA;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1053C;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER IRB;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1053D;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER SHA;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1053E;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER LAN;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1053F;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER INYA;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10540;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER XEYN;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10541;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER DYAN;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10542;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER CAR;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10543;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER JHOX;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10544;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER KAR;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10545;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER LYIT;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10546;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER HEYT;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10547;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER QAY;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10548;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER AOR;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10549;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER CHOY;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1054A;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER CHI;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1054B;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER CYAY;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1054C;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER MAQ;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1054D;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER QAR;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1054E;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER NOWC;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1054F;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER DZYAY;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10550;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER SHAK;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10551;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER JAYN;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10552;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER ON;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10553;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER TYAY;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10554;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER FAM;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10555;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER DZAY;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10556;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER CHAT;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10557;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER PEN;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10558;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER GHEYS;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10559;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER RAT;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1055A;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER SEYK;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1055B;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER VEYZ;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1055C;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER TIWR;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1055D;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER SHOY;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1055E;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER IWN;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1055F;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER CYAW;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10560;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER CAYN;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10561;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER YAYD;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10562;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER PIWR;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 10563;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN LETTER KIW;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;;;;; 1056F;CAUCASIAN ALBANIAN CITATION MARK;Po;0;ON;;;;;N;;;;; 8.