Some remarks about Unicode Hieroglyphic fonts

Some topics are so well known that often they are not even mentioned. This post is about one such topic namely that there are many modern fonts on computers and other digital devices so a writer or publisher needs to choose one or more that work for a specific purpose. Choose the wrong font for your content and the result will be be missing or unsatisfactory characters. This is true for hieroglyphic like every other writing system,

Currently all Unicode Egyptian Hieroglyphic font releases I know of implement the whole Unicode Standard (2009) basic repertoire of 1071 hieroglyphs. There are no subset fonts for specific purposes such as early school education where two hundred signs would be more than adequate. So right now we don't see missing characters or need to take a variety of fonts into account to a great extent.

With ongoing work to extend the Unicode repertoire and include quadrat shaping to make an actual writing system, this situation will likely change considerably. A font designer concerned with the classical phase of the writing system will not want to spend months or years dealing with thousands of specialist hieroglyphs attested only from the Ptolemaic period. A font designed to work well for Ramesside hieratic transcription into hieroglyphic cannot be expected to optimise quadrat arrangements irrelevant to hieratic. A font optimised for small print (e.g. 12pt - 18pt) may make different design choices for glyphs and quadrat shaping than one optimised for 24pt plus).

Furthermore decorative colour fonts are now possible using OpenType but such fonts may be limited in scope to specific purposes.

In short, over time we can expect a wide range of hieroglyphic fonts will evolve. As with modern writing systems. Some aspiring to beauty, others providing specialist functionality. Their scope of use will often be different.

First generation digital hieroglyphic systems (typically using one or another form of Manuel de Codage aka MdC coding), mask these issues. Specialist hieroglyphic software to date typically uses a single 'one size fits all' font such as a Gardiner or Hierogyphica derivation with a single fixed method of arranging hieroglyphs in quadrats. New thinking is needed to embrace a rich world of multiple fonts and take advantage of the Unicode principle of separating plain text encoding data from the fonts used to render the text.

Some of the difficulties in gaining consensus on next steps for Unicode appear to be grounded in the mistaken notion that Unicode should be used in exactly the same way as MdC practice as if the goal were a single Unicode hieroglyphic font that does everything an Egyptologist could ever ask for. There is room for a general purpose font or two - a fallback font - but it should be understood its a small part of the story for many purposes,

One practical consequence of font diversity is Unicode hieroglyphic in plain text can expect to show an 'unsupported character' glyph when displayed using a font that does not support the writers intent. Likewise a quadrat control character sequence will have visible control characters for quadrats the font does not support and might look like:

(actually all quadrats in this specific illustration will likely be fine in most fonts but it illustrates the principle).

This is no different to the situation with Unicode in many disciplines. Mathematical typesetting is a good complex example but even simple examples are commonplace in everyday life if you read beyond a-z. The solution is to understand what you are doing and use appropriate fonts, formats, and software tools for the task in hand. If specific fonts don't do the job you simply don't use them.

Like many concepts this topic will be trivial to understand once hieroglyphic is available for use as a writing system and multiple fonts are released. For now it needs a little imagination.

Historical note

As far as I know (and someone correct me if I am wrong!) the first hieroglyphic typeface was that used in the hieroglyphic dictionary and grammar of Samuel Birch, published in 1867. Next year, we can celebrate 150 years of hieroglyphs in print.

Facsimiles of typeface used in Samuel Birch's' Grammar and Dictionary from 1867. 

The Gardiner/Oxford metal typeface was cut around 60 years after Birch/Bonomi/Longman and several other fonts made and used during the intervening years. Lepsius/Theinhardt is probably the best known of these. The usual MdC situation with a single all-purpose font has a long tradition in print.

It is only recently that we are starting to see richer use of multiple fonts. A good example is Middle Egyptian Literature (James Allen, 2015) which makes effective use of a distinctive bold face.

Distinctive bold font in Middle Egyptian Literature (2015)

I expect we'll see many more innovations once the additions to Unicode are available and supported. We are approaching the beginning of a new era.


Bob Richmond