From: Marnen Laibow-Koser (marnen@marnen.org)
Date: Tue Jul 24 2007 - 11:05:53 CDT
On Jul 24, 2007, at 10:02 AM, Andreas Prilop wrote:
> How do I write/specify headings in Georgian script?
>
> Unicode has only one set of modern Georgian letters at
> U+10D0 to U+10F0.
>
> The Unicode Standard 5.0, section 7.7, does mention "mtavruli style"
> but I cannot find any information how to write it -
> or specify it, for example, in HTML.
>
Interesting question. I think the short answer is: you don't, at
least in most real cases.
Here's the long answer; I would appreciate corrections from people
who know the Georgian language and script better than I do.
Mkhedruli (i.e., modern Georgian) script is unicameral, and so would
not normally distinguish headings except perhaps by a larger font
size or a different font, both of which would be outside the scope of
Unicode. However, Georgian script has been influenced by the
surrounding bicameral alphabets, to the extent that newspaper
headlines and such are often written in a "capital" style where the
letters are stretched to be all the same height (no ascenders or
descenders). Again, however, this is probably a font decision, and
as such is outside the scope of Unicode. For HTML, I would think
that you'd just specify header tags and leave the rendering to the
browser.
The "mtavruli style" referred to in the Standard is presumably a
reference to Asomtavruli (although I haven't looked up the relevant
passage to be certain). This is the uppercase half of the Khutsuri
script, a completely different alphabet used in older writings, but
nearly obsolete today. The Asomtavruli letters are encoded in
Unicode as "GEORGIAN CAPITAL LETTER AN" and so on. There have been a
few modern attempts at using Asomtavruli letters as capitals for
Mkhedruli "lowercase", but this practice has not caught on. However,
Khutsuri has its own true lowercase (called Nuskhuri, IIRC); in
Unicode, this was formerly unified with Mkhedruli, but I seem to
recall that it got its own codespace in version 5.
To summarize:
Mkhedruli (modern Georgian) script is unicameral.
Khutsuri (Asomtavruli + Nuskhuri) is bicameral, but obsolete.
Does this answer your question?
Best,
-- Marnen Laibow-Koser marnen@marnen.org
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