ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N1523
Date: 1997-01-22
This is an unofficial HTML version of a document submitted to WG2.

Title: Proposal for encoding the Burmese script in ISO 10646

Source: Michael Everson
Status: Expert Contribution
Action: For consideration by JTC1/SC2/WG2

The naming convention follows the Brahmic unification outlined by Ross in N1321. Following many of the names is, in an informative comment, the name of the Burmese character in Burmese, since this will be of helpful to users of the standard. Those names are written in two different orthographic systems: one is in strict transliteration (permitting reconstitution of the Burmese original word) and the other is in transliteration (permitting discussion of the Burmese names with speakers of the language). As with Tibetan, both of these provide necessary and useful information to users of the standard. Full rationale and discussion of the systems used here is provided in my document JTC1/SC2/WG2 N1167, which was itself a comment on Unicode Technical Report #1 on Burmese.

This proposal is considered to be extremely stable. Positions U+1480 -> U+14FF are proposed for the Burmese block.

PROPOSAL SUMMARY FORM
TO ACCOMPANY SUBMISSIONS
FOR ADDITIONS TO THE REPERTOIRE OF ISO/IEC 10646-1

Please fill Sections A, B and C below. Section D will be filled by SC2/WG2.

A. Administrative

2. Requester's name:
Michael Everson, Evertype (WG2 member for Ireland)

3. Requester type:
Expert contribution

4. Submission date (YYMMDD):
96-06-01

5. Requester's reference:
SC2/WG2 N1167

6. Completion (Yes/no?):
Yes
More information to be provided?:
No

B. Technical - General

b. Addition of character(s) to existing block: (Yes/no?):
No
Name of block:

2. Number of characters:
85

3. Proposed category:
A

4. Proposed level of Implementation:
2
Rationale provided (Yes/no?):
Yes
Reference:
Burmese requires Level 2 implementation as other Indic scripts do.

5. Repertoire including character names provided (Yes/no?):
Yes
Character names in accordance with guidelines (Yes/no?):
Yes

Character shapes reviewable: (Yes/no?):
Yes

6. Who will provide the appropriate computerized font:
Michael Everson, Evertype
If available, identify source(s) for the font (incl. address, e-mail, etc):
Michael Everson, Evertype

Indicate the tools used:
TrueType

7. References:
a. References to other character sets, etc: (Yes/no?):
Reference to coded character sets is not made. The following works were used in preparing this proposal:

Okell, John. 1971. A guide to the romanization of Burmese. (James G. Forlang Fund; 27) London: Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

Roop, D. Haigh. 1972. An introduction to the Burmese writing system. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Ross, Hugh McGregor. 1996. Harmonization of Indic and SouthEast Asian Scripts JTC1/SC2/WG2 N1321.

b. Published examples, newspapers, etc: (Yes/no?):
Not provided here. Burmese is well-known.

C. Technical - Justification

2. Information on the user community for the proposed characters (for example: size, demographics, IT use, or publishing use) is included? (Yes/no?):
Yes
Reference:
39.8 million people live in Myanmar. They are all potential users of the script as encoded in ISO 10646.

3. The context of use for the proposed characters (common or rare):
Burmese script is commonly used to write Burmese, Karen, and other minority languages. Encoding Burmese is also important because of the great many Buddhist scriptures in Pali which are written in Burmese script.
Reference:
Unicode Technical Report #1

4. Proposed characters in current use: (Yes/no?):
Yes
Where:
In Myanmar

5. Characters be entirely in the BMP (Yes/no?):
Yes
Rationale:
Burmese is a major Category A script

6. Should characters be kept in a contiguous range (Yes/no?):
Yes

7. Can the characters be considered a presentation form of an existing character or character sequence (Yes/no?):
No
Where:
Reference:

8. Can any of the characters be considered to be similar (in appearance or function) to an existing character (Yes/no?):
No
Rationale:
Reference:

9. Combining characters and/or use of composite sequences included (Yes/no?):
No

List of composite sequences and their corresponding glyph images provided (Yes/no?):
No
Rationale:

D. SC2/WG2 Administrative (To be completed by SC2/WG2)

2. Status (list of meeting number and corresponding action or disposition):

3. Additional contact to user communities, liaison organizations etc.:

4. Assigned category and assigned priority/time frame:

Other Comments:

Burmese code table

Burmese character names