Old Italic (Unicode block)

Old Italic is a Unicode block containing a unified repertoire of several Old Italic scripts used in various parts of Italy starting about 700 BCE, including the Etruscan alphabet and others that were derived from it (or cognate with it). All those languages went extinct by about the 1st century BCE; except Latin, which however evolved its own Latin alphabet that is covered by other Unicode blocks.

Old Italic
RangeU+10300..U+1032F
(48 code points)
PlaneSMP
ScriptsOld Italic
Major alphabetsEtruscan
Faliscan
Oscan
Umbrian
South Picene
Assigned39 code points
Unused9 reserved code points
Unicode version history
3.135 (+35)
7.036 (+1)
10.039 (+3)
Note: [1][2]

Unification

For each script, each code point denotes zero or more symbols that are believed to be equivalent in that script, even if they had very different shapes. For example, in the Archaic Etruscan alphabet (used from the 7th to 5th century BCE) one letter, apparently derived from the Western Ancient Greek letter theta, could be written as a circle with an inscribed "X", or just as a circle. Those two symbols were mapped to the same code point U+10308, "OLD ITALIC LETTER THE" = "๐Œˆ".

Also, two symbols in different scripts were mapped to the same code point if they appeared to have a genetic or phonemic identity, even if their shapes and/or pronunciations were clearly distinct. For example, the Etruscans used a symbol like "C", believed to have evolved from the Ancient Greek letter gamma, for the "k" sound of their language. That symbol was assumed to be the origin of (or cognate with) a symbol of the Oscan alphabet that looked like "<" and had the sound of "g".[3] Those two symbols were therefore mapped to the same code point U+10302, "OLD ITALIC LETTER KE" = "๐Œ‚".

Therefore, the appearance of those code points when displayed or printedโ€”as in the table belowโ€”is likely to be incorrect, unless they are rendered with a font specifically designed for the particular language and letter style of the text.

The block
Old Italic[1][2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+1030x ๐Œ€ ๐Œ ๐Œ‚ ๐Œƒ ๐Œ„ ๐Œ… ๐Œ† ๐Œ‡ ๐Œˆ ๐Œ‰ ๐ŒŠ ๐Œ‹ ๐ŒŒ ๐Œ ๐ŒŽ ๐Œ
U+1031x ๐Œ ๐Œ‘ ๐Œ’ ๐Œ“ ๐Œ” ๐Œ• ๐Œ– ๐Œ— ๐Œ˜ ๐Œ™ ๐Œš ๐Œ› ๐Œœ ๐Œ ๐Œž ๐ŒŸ
U+1032x ๐Œ  ๐Œก ๐Œข ๐Œฃ ๐Œญ ๐Œฎ ๐Œฏ
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 13.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

History

The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Old Italic block:

VersionFinal code points[lower-alpha 1]CountL2 IDWG2 IDDocument
3.1U+10300..1031E, 10320..1032335L2/97-101Jenkins, John H. (1997-05-21), Proposal to add Etruscan to ISO/IEC 10646
L2/97-195N1580Jenkins, John; Everson, Michael (1997-08-16), Etruscan proposal
L2/97-288N1603Umamaheswaran, V. S. (1997-10-24), "8.24.1", Unconfirmed Meeting Minutes, WG 2 Meeting # 33, Heraklion, Crete, Greece, 20 June - 4 July 1997
L2/98-286N1703Umamaheswaran, V. S.; Ksar, Mike (1998-07-02), "8.20.1", Unconfirmed Meeting Minutes, WG 2 Meeting #34, Redmond, WA, USA; 1998-03-16--20
L2/00-128Bunz, Carl-Martin (2000-03-01), Scripts from the Past in Future Versions of Unicode
L2/00-112de Judicibus, Dario (2000-03-21), Request of change to the proposal to add Etruscan to Unicode/ISO-IEC 10646
L2/00-133Kรผster, Marc; Dohnicht, Marcus (2000-04-18), Altitalische Sprachen
L2/00-140Everson, Michael; Jenkins, John; de Judicibus, Dario (2000-04-21), Old Italic 10300--1032F (draft block description)
L2/00-246Anderson, Deborah (2000-08-01), Feedback on Old Italic (L2/00-140)
L2/00-247Anderson, Deborah (2000-08-02), Addendum to Old Italic feedback in L2/00-246Old Italic feedback: Addendum (on Umbrian and Etruscan glyphs)
L2/00-115R2Moore, Lisa (2000-08-08), "Motion 83-M6", Minutes Of UTC Meeting #83
L2/00-309Everson, Michael (2000-09-10), Revised glyphs for Old Italic (Irish comments to FCD 10646-2:2000)
L2/01-050N2253Umamaheswaran, V. S. (2001-01-21), "8.1 (Comments from Germany section, Etruscan item)", Minutes of the SC2/WG2 meeting in Athens, September 2000
7.0U+1031F1L2/11-116Moore, Lisa (2011-05-17), "C.26", UTC #127 / L2 #224 Minutes
L2/11-146RN4046Little, Christopher C. (2011-05-17), Proposal to Encode Additional Old Italic Characters
N4103"11.13 Additions to Old Italic script", Unconfirmed minutes of WG 2 meeting 58, 2012-01-03
L2/12-386N4395Little, Christopher C. (2012-11-06), Revised Proposal to Encode Additional Old Italic Characters
10.0U+1032D..1032F3N4403 (pdf, doc)Umamaheswaran, V. S. (2014-01-28), "Resolution M61.12", Unconfirmed minutes of WG 2 meeting 61, Holiday Inn, Vilnius, Lithuania; 2013-06-10/14
L2/15-181RN4669REverson, Michael (2015-07-28), Proposal for the addition of three Old Italic characters
L2/15-187Moore, Lisa (2015-08-11), "C.4", UTC #144 Minutes
L2/15-262Disposition of Comments on ISO/IEC CD 10646 (Ed.5), 2015-10-26
N4739"M64.05b", Unconfirmed minutes of WG 2 meeting 64, 2016-08-31
  1. Proposed code points and characters names may differ from final code points and names

References
  1. "Unicode character database". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2016-07-09.
  2. "Enumerated Versions of The Unicode Standard". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2016-07-09.
  3. "Oscan". Online article at the Language Gulper website. Accessed on 2019-05-02.
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