Runes in ISO 10646/Unicode?!

[Olle Jarnefors <ojarnef@admin.kth.se>]

Are you interested in runes and their possible inclusion into
ISO 10646 and Unicode? (I'm talking about the _real_ runes, the
early alphabet used by Germanic peoples from about 100 A.D. and
displayed on numerous Viking-Age runic stones, not the "runes"
of the Plan9 operating system.)

I have sent the 27 page draft proposal for a runic extension
of 10646, prepared by the ISORUNES project, to the
<iso10646@JHUVM.HCF.JHU.EDU> mailing list for public discussion.

It includes this abstract:

   Abstract: This proposal is about inclusion of the runic script
   in ISO/IEC 10646, the Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character
   Set, and thereby in Unicode. It covers the runic script
   throughout its history and over its entire area of distribution.
   Two alternatives are given, one implying the addition of 141
   characters, the other the addition of 97 characters. The
   proposal has been prepared by an international team of runic
   scholars in the project ISORUNES, sponsored by the Nordic
   Cultural Fund and the Nordic Council of Ministers.

Anyone interested can copy it by anonymous FTP from
     othello.admin.kth.se
in directory
     pub/misc/ojarnef/isorunes
as the file
     iso-runes-proposal.txta
At the same place you will also find GIF image files showing the
actual shapes of the runic characters.

If you don't have FTP access to Internet, you can send an email
to listserv@JHUVM.HCF.JHU.EDU containing the line
     get iso10646 log9501
in the message body. It's not important what's written on the
Subject: line. You will then get a copy of the January 1995 log
file for the ISO10646 mailing list sent to you by email. This
file currently contains three messages, of which the "runes in
ISO 10646" proposal is the last (but it will grow during this
month).

/Olle

--
Olle Jarnefors, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm <ojarnef@admin.kth.se>