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Cuneiform Signs |
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Analysis and reports to support an international standard for computer encoding of the Cuneiform writing system Research on the development of Cuneiform signs |
Please read the introductions on THIS page before proceeding elsewhere. The buttons above link to materials posted a long time ago. Analyses dating from the beginning of 2004 are linked to from the second section of this page "Before Using This List" below. Preliminaries towards an extended List of Cuneiform Signs (Second web version, 1 April, 2004.) Part 1. Sign Names A through F. With numbers from Borger's new list via Ellermeier's publication including them, not yet proofed against Borger's published book. For Names G through N please click here For Names O through Z please click here For numbers and proportions of signs shared among lists ZATU, UET II, Fara LAK, Ur III KWU, UTC February 2004, and Borger 2004, please click here. Copyright © 2003, 2004. All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted for others to use the information on these web pages for preparation of a proposal to Unicode for a standard encoding of Cuneiform. The sign list itself is free of any restrictions. Much of the analytical material in linked pages will be included in an etymological study and concordance to cuneiform signs, to be published shortly, and may be used to validate the sign list, but should not be cited in any detail until it is published (guaranteed 2004). |
Before using this list: IMPORTANT Even after this list is further polished and additional information is added, it should be used only AFTER reading the connected web pages which are small studies of particular sets of signs and particular ways to identify what are distinctive unitary characters, often containing several components, rather than sequences of those components treated as if they were sequences of signs. Click on the following names for some of the other pages which are most relevant. / Evidence seen by comparing different Time Periods. / Sign or Sign Sequence / Artificial Divisions of signs into fragments. / Spacing and Line Breaks as evidence for character boundaries. / Kerning, considered for IGI, SAL, or RU, is a doubtful solution / Variants versus Spellings. / Container Types. / "Cover" Containers ("U" = SHU4, SHU2). / The type SIGN OVER SIGN. / Splits and Mergers. / Gunu, $e$$ig, Tenu ambiguities / ZATU sign triage. |
Note on Names: The names in this list correspond in general with those in the draft presented at the February 2004 UTC meeting, in that they often name complex signs as SIGN x SIGN even if they also have names consisting of a single word. This groups many related signs together. However, common single names which are single signs such as NAB and MUL (two and three components AN) occur *in this web-page list* under their usual names, even though in agreement with the UTC proposal these would be encoded adjacent to each other. They are listed adjacent to each other in the *Etymological Dictionary and Concordance of Cuneiform Signs* which is in preparation and has been made available to several of the encoding participants. There are a few differences reflecting analyses noted above. For example, the Container component name UTUA2 replaces occurrences of "DAG.KISIM5", HUBUR replaces NUNUZ.KISIM5, and TUR3 replaces NUN.LAGAR (which is etymologically NUN x LAGAR). Signs with SHU4 ("U") or SHU2 above them (before the 90-degree rotation) or to the left of them (after the 90-degree rotation) are listed under those names, but appear in the *Etymological Dictionary...* together with the base sign lacking the SHU4 or SHU2 above. Some other signs are named similarly, as "SIGN with SHE (attached, above)" rather than "SHE x SIGN". The Borger numbers and/or UTC February proposal numbers should identify them unambiguously in virtually every case. For the few differences between sign names used here and those in the UTC proposal of February 2004, please click here. Syntax in Sign Names: Unicode sign names cannot use parentheses. But the names used here
do use parentheses to distinguish names of the type Note on Sign Numbers (including those from Borger's new list): Five non-breaking space characters are inserted in the list below between the Borger number and the UTC number, and again between the UTC number and the sign name. The presence of either a Borger number or 4 asterisks ****, or a UTC number or five lowercase "o" ooooo, mostly signals a sign which is distinctive and should probably be encoded as a character in the standard, though a few Borger numbers which represent non-distinctive variants may not be signaled yet. Signs with Borger numbers or **** and the word "variant" sometimes represent distinctive signs, not what we in Unicode mean by "variant". Borger numbers with (v) after them represent variants which really are that, not warranting independent encoding. Names without either a Borger number or UTC number and neither **** nor ooooo before them probably represent sequences of signs or variants which are not distinctive, and will be eliminated from the list. Those lines can mostly be disregarded. Because each line of this list was alphabetized separately, lines may not be adjacent to their most closely related signs. There may still be a few names "SIGN.SIGN" for which there is no evidence these are a single sign, though most of these have already been either deleted from this list or their names corrected to "SIGN x SIGN" (etc.) when that is warranted by etymological evidence crossing time periods. A later version may mark those items in the Pennsylvania Sign list but not in Borger's list with PA**, though such items are in general recognizable as signs which have a UTC number but **** instead of a Borger number.. |
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Borger UTC
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