Encoding Celtic fonts

Michael Everson

Celtic fonts should not just be decorative fonts; they should be useful for Celtic languages.

To ensure compatibility and reliability of text interchange, standard 8-bit character sets have been developed to serve the Celtic languages.

There are now new character set versions which have to be reckoned with when converting text. It is highly recommended to use the new version 2.0 character sets.

The advent of the EURO SIGN and the need to represent it in Gaelic fonts has required the devising of new versions of the recommended character sets. Because another character, the TIRONIAN SIGN ET (the "agus" sign), was also added to the Univeral Character Set, it was also necessary to disunify it from the AMPERSAND, to restore the AMPERSAND to its correct position in the code tables, and to add the TIRONIAN SIGN ET to new positions in the code table. Evidence for the use of both AMPERSAND and TIRONIAN SIGN ET in Irish texts can be found at http://www.evertype.com/standards/iso10646/pdf/amperagus.pdf

On the Macintosh, the Mac OS Gaelic character set offers all the usual letters found in the Mac OS Roman character set, plus the extra consonants used in Irish Gaelic and the extra vowels used in Welsh. This character set shipped with the Irish Gaelic localization of the Mac OS.
On the PC, the new Extended Latin 8 character set, offers all the usual letters found in the Latin 1 character set, plus the extra consonants used in Irish Gaelic and the extra vowels used in Welsh. Its extensions in columns 8 and 9 are for use under Windows. Latin 8 was approved as ISO/IEC 8859-14 in 1998.
On the PC, an ad-hoc standard was developed and published in 1994 in Feasta, called the CER-GS (Celtic Extended Roman GS) character set. A number of typographers have implemented this standard. Because of the status afforded Celtic character encoding by ISO/IEC 8859-14, it is highly recommended to use Extended Latin 8 rather than CER-GS. CER-GS has not been updated to contain the EURO SIGN or the TIRONIAN ET SIGN.

If you are making Celtic fonts, you should use (1) for Mac fonts and (2) for PC fonts. The character sets below show you where you should put these characters when developing Celtic fonts if you wish to support the standard character sets for Celtic. Compliance with these standards is highly recommended. Encoded data is just as important as a beautiful typeface.

As technology improves and information about Unicode-ready fonts is available, this page will be updated to reflect it.

Mac OS Gaelic
Version 2.0	Version 1.0

The characters shaded in the drawing here are the special Celtic characters not normally found in the Macintosh Roman code table. They are given here in order of their appearance in the Macintosh code table:

2.0 hex	1.0 hex	Name	UCS
26	--	AMPERSAND	0026
B0	B0	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B WITH DOT ABOVE	1E02
B4	B4	LATIN SMALL LETTER B WITH DOT ABOVE	1E03
B5	B5	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH DOT ABOVE	010A
B6	B6	LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH DOT ABOVE	010B
B7	B7	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D WITH DOT ABOVE	1E0A
B8	B8	LATIN SMALL LETTER D WITH DOT ABOVE	1E0B
B9	B8	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F WITH DOT ABOVE	1E1E
BA	BA	LATIN SMALL LETTER F WITH DOT ABOVE	1E1F
BB	BB	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G WITH DOT ABOVE	0120
BC	BC	LATIN SMALL LETTER G WITH DOT ABOVE	0121
BD	BD	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M WITH DOT ABOVE	1E40
C0	C0	LATIN SMALL LETTER M WITH DOT ABOVE	1E41
C1	C1	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P WITH DOT ABOVE	1E56
C2	C2	LATIN SMALL LETTER P WITH DOT ABOVE	1E57
C3	C3	LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH LONG LEG	027C
C5	C5	LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S	017F
C6	C6	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH DOT ABOVE	1E60
D6	D6	LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH DOT ABOVE	1E61
D7	D7	LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S WITH DOT ABOVE	1E9B
DA	DA	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T WITH DOT ABOVE	1E6A
DB	--	EURO SIGN	20AC
--	DB	CURRENCY SIGN	00A4
DE	DE	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH CIRCUMFLEX	0176
DF	DF	LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH CIRCUMFLEX	0177
E0	E0	LATIN SMALL LETTER T WITH DOT ABOVE	1E6B
E2	E2	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH GRAVE	1EF2
E3	E3	LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH GRAVE	1EF3
E4	26	TIRONIAN SIGN ET	204A
--	E4	PER MILLE SIGN	2030
F6	F6	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH ACUTE	00DD
F7	D7	LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH ACUTE	00FD
F8	D8	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W WITH CIRCUMFLEX	0174
F9	F9	LATIN SMALL LETTER W WITH CIRCUMFLEX	0175
FA	FA	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W WITH DIAERESIS	1E84
FB	FB	LATIN SMALL LETTER W WITH DIAERESIS	1E85
FC	FC	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W WITH GRAVE	1E80
FD	FD	LATIN SMALL LETTER W WITH GRAVE	1E81
FE	FE	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W WITH ACUTE	1E82
FF	FF	LATIN SMALL LETTER W WITH ACUTE	1E83

Extended Latin 8
Version 2.0	Version 1.0

The characters shaded in the drawing here are the special Celtic characters not normally found in the Latin 1 code table. They are given here in order of their appearance in the Latin 8 code table:

2.0 hex	1.0 hex	Name	UCS
26	--	AMPERSAND	0026
80	--	EURO SIGN	20AC
84	26	TIRONIAN SIGN ET	204A
--	84	PLUS-MINUS SIGN	00B1
89	89	LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH LONG LEG	027C
8A	8A	LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S	017F
9A	9A	LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S WITH DOT ABOVE	1E9B
9F	9F	LATIN SMALL LETTER DOTLESS I	0131
A1	A1	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B WITH DOT ABOVE	1E02
A2	A2	LATIN SMALL LETTER B WITH DOT ABOVE	1E03
A4	A4	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH DOT ABOVE	010A
A5	A5	LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH DOT ABOVE	010B
A6	A6	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D WITH DOT ABOVE	1E0A
A8	A8	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W WITH GRAVE	1E80
AA	AA	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W WITH ACUTE	1E82
AB	AB	LATIN SMALL LETTER D WITH DOT ABOVE	1E0B
AC	AC	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH GRAVE	1EF2
AF	AF	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS	0178
B0	B0	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F WITH DOT ABOVE	1E1E
B1	B1	LATIN SMALL LETTER F WITH DOT ABOVE	1E1F
B2	B2	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G WITH DOT ABOVE	0120
B3	B3	LATIN SMALL LETTER G WITH DOT ABOVE	0121
B4	B4	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M WITH DOT ABOVE	1E40
B5	B5	LATIN SMALL LETTER M WITH DOT ABOVE	1E41
B7	B7	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P WITH DOT ABOVE	1E56
B8	B8	LATIN SMALL LETTER W WITH GRAVE	1E81
B9	B9	LATIN SMALL LETTER P WITH DOT ABOVE	1E57
BA	BA	LATIN SMALL LETTER W WITH ACUTE	1E83
BB	BB	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH DOT ABOVE	1E60
BC	BC	LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH GRAVE	1EF3
BD	BD	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W WITH DIAERESIS	1E84
BE	BE	LATIN SMALL LETTER W WITH DIAERESIS	1E85
BF	BF	LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH DOT ABOVE	1E61
D0	D0	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W WITH CIRCUMFLEX	0174
D7	D7	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T WITH DOT ABOVE	1E6A
DE	DE	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH CIRCUMFLEX	0176
F0	F0	LATIN SMALL LETTER W WITH CIRCUMFLEX	0175
F7	F7	LATIN SMALL LETTER T WITH DOT ABOVE	1E6B
FE	FE	LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH CIRCUMFLEX	0177

CER-GS (Celtic Extended Roman GS)

The characters shaded in the drawing here are the special Celtic characters not normally found in the Windows code table. They are given here in order of their appearance in the CER-GS code table:

hex	Name	UCS
82	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B WITH DOT ABOVE	1E02
83	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH DOT ABOVE	010A
84	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D WITH DOT ABOVE	1E0A
86	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER G WITH DOT ABOVE	0120
87	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M WITH DOT ABOVE	1E40
89	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P WITH DOT ABOVE	1E56
8A	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH DOT ABOVE	1E60
9A	LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH DOT ABOVE	1E61
9F	DIAERESIS	00A8
A1	LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S	017F
A4	LATIN SMALL LETTER D WITH DOT ABOVE	1E0B
A5	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER F WITH DOT ABOVE	1E1E
A8	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W WITH GRAVE	1E80
AA	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W WITH ACUTE	1E82
AC	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH GRAVE	1EF2
AF	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH DIAERESIS	0178
B0	LATIN SMALL LETTER G WITH DOT ABOVE	0121
B1	LATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S WITH DOT ABOVE	1E9B
B2	LATIN SMALL LETTER B WITH DOT ABOVE	1E03
B3	LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH DOT ABOVE	010B
B5	LATIN SMALL LETTER F WITH DOT ABOVE	1E1F
B7	LATIN SMALL LETTER M WITH DOT ABOVE	1E41
B8	LATIN SMALL LETTER W WITH GRAVE	1E81
B9	LATIN SMALL LETTER P WITH DOT ABOVE	1E57
BA	LATIN SMALL LETTER W WITH ACUTE	1E83
BC	LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH GRAVE	1EF3
BD	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W WITH DIAERESIS	1E84
BE	LATIN SMALL LETTER W WITH DIAERESIS	1E85
BF	LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH LONG LEG	027C
D0	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER W WITH CIRCUMFLEX	0174
D7	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T WITH DOT ABOVE	1E6A
DE	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH CIRCUMFLEX	0176
F0	LATIN SMALL LETTER W WITH CIRCUMFLEX	0175
F7	LATIN SMALL LETTER T WITH DOT ABOVE	1E6B
FE	LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH CIRCUMFLEX	0177

HTML Michael Everson, Evertype, Cnoc na Sceiche, Leac an Anfa, Cathair na Mart, Co. Mhaigh Eo, Éire, 2002-04-27