Dentistry notation symbols

[Ken Whistler]

Jonathan,

What you are looking for is WG2 N2093:

https://www.unicode.org/wg2/docs/n2093.pdf

The proximal cause for the encoding of these characters was 
compatibility with JIS X 0213. And in WG2 N2093 you can see them cited 
in the chart "Enufour Gaiji for Dentists".

Then on p. 11 of the pdf you can see citations of the corner angle 
notation claimed as part of the Palmer (1870) method of recording teeth. 
Then you can see some other citations in Japanese dentistry documents on 
pp. 13 through 16 of the pdf.

The scribbled Japanese next to each of the circled examples on those 
pages says "example". The little triangle between two teeth seems to 
refer to a bridge. Many of the characters in the range 23BE..23CC are 
not actually exemplified in these four pages, but rather only in that 
Enufour Gaiji for Dentists listing. And no, I can't provide any more 
interpretation of what each of them is intended to mean.

By the way, the two medical records shown on pp. 15 - 16 of the pdf are 
dated 1997, only a couple years earlier than the 1999 date of WG2 N2093. 
So this usage of Palmer notation with these symbol extensions was not 
some completely obsolete convention at the time.

--Ken


On 4/8/2022 11:26 AM, Jonathan Chan via Unicode wrote:
> They're all named DENTISTRY SYMBOL LIGHT..., and the Standard only 
> says they're for dental notation:
>
>     *Dental Symbols.* The set of symbols from U+23BE to U+23CC form a
>     set of symbols from JIS X 0213 for use in dental notation.
>
>
> According to Wikipedia the first two and the last two are used in 
> Palmer notation <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_notation>, but 
> it doesn't explain what the rest of them are used for. The only 
> historical document I could find with some sort of explanation is 
> document N2195 <https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2000/00098-n2195.pdf>, but 
> it only explains how they're used and not what they're meant to 
> represent, why they need to exist, or what the circle, triangle, and 
> tilde mean. Based on some cursory searching it doesn't seem like those 
> symbols are standard in modern dental notation either.
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