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i got curious about this tweet (new shit in Unicode!) and here is what i found @BabelStone/799587835087122432Permalink Look on archive.org
♻️ 6 Retweets ❤️ 11 Favorites Mood -3 🙁
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Nüshu is a syllabic (phonetic) script from Jiangyong County in China. It was exclusively used and taught by women. It looks beautiful:Permalink Look on archive.org
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The characters are modified Chinese characters, but they were modified to better suit embroidery. The last original user died in 2004.Look on archive.org
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Here are the Unicode proposal papers on Nushu: scriptsource.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=entry_detail&uid=v39xawqg64 and here's the Wikipedia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCshu_scriptPermalink Look on archive.org
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Gondi is a language spoken by Gonds (ofc) in India. There is not a widespread native script, so it's often written in Devanagari and Telugu.Permalink Look on archive.org
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People have tried to fix that! In 1928, Munshi Mangal Singh Masaram invented a native Gondi script, which is what we're gonna talk about nowPermalink Look on archive.org
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(what I'm about to post comes from the official Unicode proposal by @anshumanp unicode.org/L2/L2015/15090-masaram-gondi.pdf, which is worth seeing in full)Permalink Look on archive.org
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(i should also clarify that i absolutely don't know what i'm talking about, and may be making errors. but i'm interested)Permalink Look on archive.org
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so: Masaram Gondi. It goes left-to-right, it represents syllables. The consonants implicitly include an "a" vowel, w/ a bit out on the rightPermalink Look on archive.org
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and then vowels are indicated with extra stuff on that sticky out bit! (there are more modifiers and other cases than this pic shows)Permalink Look on archive.org
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and here's the full codepoint chart, and a diagram for how characters are laid outPermalink Look on archive.org
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here are some examples of handwritten Masaram Gondi (i love the way the handwriting plays off against the repetition in the charts)Permalink Look on archive.org
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and some from the coming age of easy computer typesetting of Masaram Gondi (note the mojibake on the website!)Permalink Look on archive.org
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this feels like heroic work from start to finish, tbh - both inventing the script, and now thoughtfully documenting and standardizing it.Permalink Look on archive.org