Version User Scope of changes
Aug 29 2009, 2:32 PM EDT DeborahAnderson 661 words deleted
Aug 29 2009, 2:29 PM EDT DeborahAnderson 661 words added

Changes

Key:  Additions   Deletions
As you begin typing text with a Unicode font, questions may arise in trying to determine how to find whether the character you are in 1. Check on the code charts on the Unicode Consortium website (www.unicode.org/charts), as thewebsite is usually more up-to-date than the print version.Most symbols for the IPA and the Americanist systems are already covered by Unicode. Note thatsome symbols are represented by using a sequence of two Unicode codepoints:Example: the voiceless dental plosive, ṱ, is covered by:0074 t LATIN SMALL LETTER T032D ̭ COMBINING CIRCUMFLEX ACCENT BELOWThough most IPA symbols are contained in the IPA Extensions block, characters also come fromother blocks (Latin and Greek, for example). These characters are listed at the beginning of thenames list in the IPA Extension block. A new Phonetic Extensions block has been added withUnicode 4.0 (http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1D00.pdf), created primarily for the UralicPhonetic Alphabet. Note that characters for linguistic transcriptions may also be created from abase character and characters contained in the Spacing Modifier Letters block or CombiningDiacritics block.Also useful are:(a) the Unicode Character Names Index, which lists the formal character names, alternativecharacter names, and character group names alphabetically. The page is located at:http://www.unicode.org/charts/charindex.html.(b) the Collation Charts on the Unicode Consortium website(http://www.unicode.org/charts/collation/), which graphically group similar characters (butseparate the differences between them with colors). The differences are determined using theUnicode Collation Algorithm.• Check Appendix 2 of the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association (pp. 161–185),where Unicode character codes for IPA symbols are listed. On the web, a listing is also found at:http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-unicode.htm. Another option is to check the IPA chartposted at http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/charts/unicode_ipa-chart.htm, which displays theUnicode character numbers when the mouse hovers over the symbol.Note: In looking through Unicode charts and when using “insert Symbol” or font charts, be carefulof “spoof buddies” or “confusables”:Example:“Barred o,” properly 0275, has a look-alike: 04E9 ө (CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER BARRED 0)For a list of such “confusables,” see http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/confusables.htm2. See if the character is in the process of being proposed:• Check on Unicode’s Proposed New Characters page: http://unicode.org/alloc/Pipeline.html• Ask on the Transcription email listTo subscribe, send email to the following address: majordomo@listlink.berkeley.edu, with thefollowing command in the body of your email message: subscribe transcription email@addressreplacing “email@address” with your actual email address. If you ever need to get in contact withthe owner of the list, send email to: owner-transcription@listlink.berkeley.edu.• Ask on the Unicode email list (directions: http://unicode.org/consortium/distlist.html)• Verify the character you need is a true character, and not a variant.3. If you find a character that is missingThe Unicode Standard offers a huge array of encoded characters that are able to serve most linguists’needs, and because they are already in Unicode—which has been adopted by many software and fontcompanies—they can currently be used in documents. “Inventing” a new character is, however, notrecommended, for problems will arise in short and long term accessibility (i.e., sending, receiving, andprinting) such non-standard characters.If a particular character is needed and is not covered by Unicode, then it is advisable to work directly withthe Unicode Technical Committee and Peter Constable of SIL (Peter_Constable@sil.org) so a proposal canbe put forward. Particularly helpful for proposals are Xeroxes or scans of pages from books or journals thatshow a particular character in context (with the bibliographic information included). Though the fullapproval process can take several years, it will provide a means for others in the future to access thecharacter in the international character encoding standard.General guidelines on how to produce a Unicode proposal are located at:http://www.unicode.org/pending/proposals.html. Proposals include: a list of characters (with their names, arepresentative glyph for each, and information on each character’s properties), a representative sample ofthe characters in context (i.e., in texts), and a short bibliography with references.7 Other