[Egyptian] Preliminary proposal to encode Möller's Egyptian Hieroglyphs in the SMP of the UCS

[Michel Suignard]

Reacting to some feedback
First from Stéphane:
<<
As mentioned during the Cambridge meeting (and stressed again in several mails by Mark-Jan), producing a referenced sign-list (according to the model that Serge and myself presented in Cambridge or following another model, it does not matter much) shall require scholarly work - and comparing the shape of forms in publications without paying systematic attention to the phonemographic and semographic functions of these signs in context will hardly lead anywhere satisfying for the egyptological community.
>>
When doing my work, I obviously saw these phonograms and logograms associated with the signs and I have observed that many of the glyphs share the same values. There is also not a complete consistency in how these are presented, sometimes in English/French/German, some in transliterated Egyptian. Sometimes a value is provided w/o clear determination whether it is phonogram, logogram, determinative, other. I am not ignoring that aspect; it is just that I would like someone better qualified than I to fill these values.

In historic script (or historic segment of modern use script) there is always a tension between identity and reference. The identity requires scholarly work, but at the same time even discussing the signs requires references. And references tend to be established visually. This is happening all the times in the CJK (Han) universe. If you wait for an authoritative scholarly analysis of the full set of Hieroglyphs you may never any result. But even now, I see that the Hieroglyphica reference numbers are frequently used to identify signs in various publications. So in some aspect they have acquired an 'identity' of their own. I still think it is possible to identify a large set of extended hieroglyphs that can be encoded, even if ultimately some of them are not identified immediately or even maybe never identified. Adding cross-reference by comparing various sources strengthen the reference validity and then allow the scholarly work associated with establishing the identity.

>From Serge
<< I would like to add that focusing on a tree-like taxonomy of signs based on their description is maybe not needed - at least, not needed with
a very fine granularity.

Tree-like representations have the advantage that they can be published on paper. But, with computers, we might
get something better and more versatile. I have made such an attempt with JSesh hieroglyphic palette : instead of trying to fit signs like A429
(man with lion) in the category « man » or in the category « animal », I have
used multiple description criteria.

Of course, the JSesh system, which simply uses tags, is not perfect. It would be better to have a kind of thesaurus on the tags themselves (lion < feline, for instance) ; and to have
an actual description language on the signs (so that « MAN HOLDING X8 » could be used as part of a description. JSesh would describe such a sign by having
the simple tag « HOLDING_SOMETHING », on one hand, and by listing X8 as part of the glyph.
(which allows me to find quite quickly in the JSesh palette that the said sign is A176).

Of course, the taxonomy is a useful starting point for producing this language. If you look at JSesh's palette, you will find many tags which come from the IFAO categories.
>>
The tree I am proposing has only two levels, so on the granularity level we are not necessarily that much apart. I just find a category such as the 'A-Men and his occupations' with over 500 members just not manageable w/o at least another level. I don't see a shallow tree based taxonomy and a computer approach as contradictory. In fact, they complement each other. For example, A429 (interesting that we are both using a Hieroglyphica reference here) may be categorized in 'A(21)-man and animal', it can still be described in the database as containing both a man and a lion. Therefore, allowing a search on the description field would allow its retrieval, independently of its location in the tree.

Similarly, for A176, although it is included in a category 'A(15)-man standing, composed with a hieroglyphic sign', it can be described as composed of a man standing and X8 (bread), and tags of the sort 'holding something' could also be introduced in a database. Btw A176 is solidly attested and is a prime candidate for encoding.

I don't see all these efforts as contradictory, however to be able to converge we need to have some common references. Fortunately, as demonstrated above we have already some basis for this (such as Hieroglyphica). We probably disagree on how fast we can get some encoding in Unicode but we don't have to solve that right away.

And
<<
- On one hand, printed fonts might hide relevant details, hiding two distinct signs behind one code ;
- On the other hand, the egyptian had exactly the same problem, and originally distinct signs might merge due to some graphical or phonetical proximity.
>>
On the first case, you would encode a new sign and dis-unify the now distinct identities,
On the second case, you would deprecate the identity of the redundant character(s). The deprecated character stays encoded, but are no longer associated with their former identity. None of this is perfect but it is an accepted practice in Unicode.

Best regards,

Michel

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