Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

Wed Feb 12 16:30:17 CST 2020

Interesting that a single character is creating so much feedback, but it is not the first time.

It is true that the glyph in question was not in the base Hieroglyphica glyph set (that is why I referenced it as an 'extension'). Its presence though raises an interesting point concerning abstraction of Egyptian hieroglyphs in general. All Egyptian hieroglyphs proposals imply some abstraction from the original evidences found on stone, wood, papyrus. At some point you have to decide some level where you feel confident that you created enough glyphs to allow meaningful interaction among Egyptologists. Because the set represents an extinct system you probably have to be a bit liberal in allowing some visual variants (because we can never be completely sure two similar looking signs are 100% equivalent in all their possible functions in the writing system and are never used in contrast).

These abstract collections have started to appear in the first part of the nineteen century (Champollion starting in 1822). Interestingly these collections have started to be useful on their own even if in some case the main use of  parts is self-referencing, either because the glyph is a known mistake, or a ghost (character for which attestation is now firmly disputed). For example, it would be very difficult to create a new set not including the full Gardiner set, even if some of the characters are not necessarily justified. To a large degree, Hieroglyphica (and its related collection JSesh) has obtained that status as well. The IFAO (Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientatle) set is another one, although there is no modern font representing all of it (although many of the IFAO glyphs should not be encoded separately).

There is obviously no doubt that the character in question [cid:image003.png at 01D5E1B0.F18C11C0] is a modern invention and not based on historical evidence. But interestingly enough it has started to be used as a pictogram with some content value, describing in fact an Egyptologist. It may not belong to that block, but it actually describes an use case and has been used a symbol in some technical publication.

Concerning:

The question is then: was this well known about people reading hieroglyphs who checked this proposal? If not, it is very difficult to trust other hieroglyphs, especially if the first explanation is the good

one: some trap characters could actually look like real ones. Except of course if we accept some hieroglyphs for compatibility purpose, but this is not mentioned as a valid reason in any propoal yet.

> In my opinion, this is an invalid character, which should not be

> included in Unicode.

I agree.

You are allowed to have your own opinion, but I can tell you I have spent a lot of times checking attestation from many sources for the proposed repertoire. It won’t be perfect, but perfection (or a closer reach) would probably cost decades in study while preventing current research to have a communication platform. I don’t have a strong opinion about that character, but I would be very disappointed if people stop the review for what is a minor issue in the overall scheme.

Best regards

Michel

-----Original Message-----
From: Frédéric Grosshans <frederic.grosshans at gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2020 12:04 PM
To: Marius Spix <marius.spix at web.de>; Unicode <unicode at unicode.org>
Cc: Michel Suignard <michel at suignard.com>
Subject: Re: Egyptian Hieroglyph Man with a Laptop

Le 12/02/2020 à 20:38, Marius Spix a écrit :

> That is a pretty interesting finding. This glyph was not part of

> http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2018/18165-n4944-hieroglyphs.pdf

It is, as *U+1355A EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH A-12-051

> but has been first seen in

> http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2019/19220-n5063-hieroglyphs.pdf

>

> The only "evidence" for this glyph I could find, is a stock photo,

> which is clearly made in the 21th century.

> https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-egyptian-hieroglyphics-with-notebook

> -digital-illustration-57472465.html

I don’t even think it could qualify, since I think the woman in this picture would correspond to another hieroglyph, from the B series (B-04), not a A-12.

>

> I know, that some font creators include so-called trap characters,

> similar to trap streets which are often found in maps to catch

> copyright violations. But it is also possible that the someone wanted

> to smuggle an easter-egg into Unicode or just test if the quality assurance works.

The question is then: was this well known about people reading hieroglyphs who checked this proposal? If not, it is very difficult to trust other hieroglyphs, especially if the first explanation is the good

one: some trap characters could actually look like real ones. Except of course if we accept some hieroglyphs for compatibility purpose, but this is not mentioned as a valid reason in any propoal yet.

> In my opinion, this is an invalid character, which should not be

> included in Unicode.

I agree.

  Frédéric

>

> On Thu, 12 Feb 2020 19:12:14 +0100

> Frédéric Grosshans via Unicode <unicode at unicode.org<mailto:unicode at unicode.org>> wrote:

>

>> Dear Unicode list members (CC Michel Suignard),

>>

>>     the Unicode proposal L2/20-068

>> <https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20068-n5128-ext-hieroglyph.pdf>,

>> “Revised draft for the encoding of an extended Egyptian Hieroglyphs

>> repertoire, Groups A to N” (

>> https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20068-n5128-ext-hieroglyph.pdf ) by

>> Michel Suignard contains a very interesting hieroglyph at position

>> *U+13579 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH A-12-054, which seems to represent a man

>> with a laptop, as can be obvious in the attached image.

>>

>>     I am curious about the source of this hieroglyph: in the table

>> acompannying the document, its sources are said to be “Hieroglyphica

>> extension (various sources)” with number A58C and “Hornung & Schenkel

>> (2007, last modified in 2015)”, but with no number (A;), which seems

>> unique in the table. It leads me to think this glyph only exist in

>> some modern font, either as a joke, or for some computer related

>> modern use. Can anyone infirm or confirm this intuition ?

>>

>>      Frédéric

>>

>>

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