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UTC Script Encoding Working Group

The goal of the UTC Script Encoding Working Group is to provide recommendations to the Unicode® Technical Committee (UTC) on encoding proposals and other documents, outside of CJK or emoji-related topics. These recommendations reflect the collective discussion of the participants, and are intended to guide further discussion at the UTC meetings, particularly regarding complex topics that require an extended, in-depth discussion. Preparation of summary recommendations makes the decision process during plenary UTC meetings more efficient. The recommendations are not binding—the Unicode Technical Committee makes the final decisions on all proposals.

A secondary goal of the Script Encoding Working Group is to assist proposal authors in updating their proposals to meet the exacting technical requirements of the UTC. Rather than forwarding a recommendation for a promising, but incomplete, proposal to the UTC, where the proposal might simply be rejected for incompleteness, the Script Encoding Working Group is authorized to work with authors in an iterative process, providing specific feedback for improvement and suggesting further discussion and updating of the proposal. Such interaction can assist new proposals authors who may be unfamiliar with the details of the Unicode Standard or the standardization requirements of the UTC.

Handling of Proposals

The UTC and the Script Encoding Working Group receive many requests to encode new scripts and characters. Because these committees are volunteer-run groups and have limited resources, they cannot respond to all requests. Of the submissions received, only full proposals will be seriously considered.

Proposals are typically reviewed by a member of the Script Encoding Working Group and then discussed by the full group. Proposals and documents related to proposals, scripts, or individual character issues may take several months before they are discussed within the Script Encoding Working Group. Any comments arising from the discussion are sent to the author or are included in the quarterly Script Encoding Working Group report. In general, only those proposals that are considered “mature” and deemed ready for review by the Unicode Technical Committee will be posted in the Unicode document register.

For guidance in preparing an encoding proposal, please make use of our templates, to ensure that any proposal submitted contains all the required information. See L2/23-105, the template for proposing the encoding of a new script, and L2/23-104, the template for proposing the encoding of a new character for a script already encoded in the Unicode Standard. Also, please carefully review the information at Submitting Character Proposals.

Scope

The scope of the Script Encoding Working Group includes all proposals for the encoding of new scripts, modern or historic, as well as proposals for non-emoji symbols, punctuation, or notational systems. CJK-related proposals are handled by the CJK & Unihan group. Emoji proposals are handled by the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee.

For a short video describing the work of the Script Encoding Working Group and the script encoding process, see the YouTube presentation “Scripts and Character Encoding” by Deborah Anderson, Script Encoding Working Group Chair, accessible from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkUea5gEuV8 This video was part of the “Overview of Internationalization and Unicode Projects” event that took place on Sept. 28, 2022. To see the full playlist of talks, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkUea5gEuV8

To view Deborah Anderson’s and Andrew Glass's slide sets from the May 16, 2023 Unicode webinar presentation on “Documenting and Preserving Languages with Unicode”, which discuss the basics of Unicode encoding, fonts, and keyboards, see the webinar on the Unicode YouTube channel. The slide sets from the presentation are also available, see: Character Encoding and Fonts and Keyboards. For a PDF of the Questions and Answers from the webinar, see: Questions and Answers from the Unicode webinar.

Meetings

The Script Encoding Working Group meets on a regular basis, usually one day a month. Meetings are scheduled in an effort to guarantee that a full, quarterly report of proposal reviews can be provided in a timely manner to each meeting of the Unicode Technical Committee.

Script Encoding Working Group Participants

The Script Encoding Working Group meetings are organized and chaired by Deborah Anderson, Roozbeh Pournader, and Jan Kučera. Participation is by language experts from the Unicode Technical Committee or by permission of the chair. Especially for complex script topics, the Script Encoding Working Group reaches out to proposal authors, to ensure that their feedback is part of the process, and so they may answer questions that the proposal reviewers may have about various character proposals.

Reports of the Script Encoding Working Group

Each quarter, before a UTC meeting, the chair of the Script Encoding Working Group prepares a report for the UTC, encompassing the recommendations of all the Script Encoding Working Group meetings since the prior UTC. These reports are added to the UTC document register as publicly accessible documents.

For convenience in reference, a complete list of all Script Encoding Working Group reports, dating back to 2010, is also maintained.

Confidentiality of Meeting Discussions

The Script Encoding Working Group engages in frank discussions regarding complex, technical content. As a working group reporting to the UTC, it follows the same general rules regarding confidentiality of meeting discussions. Citing from the Technical Committee Procedures of the Unicode Consortium, "Discussions during meetings are confidential and are not to be shared publicly without explicit permission of the chair."

Intermediate drafts of the Script Encoding Working Group reports are also confidential, until they can be vetted and any errors corrected. The final reports, which then represent the Script Encoding Working Group consensus recommendations, are public documents.