RE: Andrew C. West 魏安 1960–2025

[Martin Heijdra]

Thank you, Michael, for this terrible news. He had been posting message until a few years ago.

I knew him since he was a graduate student here; it took a while before he found his niche in which he became such an important figure.

Martin

-----Original Message-----
From: Unicode <unicode-bounces at corp.unicode.org> On Behalf Of Michael Everson via Unicode
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2025 12:57 PM
To: Unicode@ <unicode at corp.unicode.org>
Subject: Andrew C. West 魏安 1960–2025

With heavy heart it is my duty to inform my friends and colleagues that our great comrade Andrew West, Sinologist, Tangutologist, Khitanologist, Jurchenologist, Anglicist, and best of friends died suddenly though peacefully on 10 July 2025. 

Andrew and I worked together on many encoding projects, including on some characters which have yet to be accepted for encoding. We have lost a giant amongst script encoders. 

In 2016 Evertype published Andrew and Imre Galambos’s facsimile edition of Gerard Clauson’s Skeleton Tangut (Hsi Hsia) Dictionary. Andrew was preparing several more volumes about Tangut language and literature, and an edition of the classic Chinese novel “Water Margin” (水滸傳). 

I have spoken with his widow Wei-Wei, and learned that, fortunately, his passwords are known and so it may be possible to work with some of his other colleagues to finish some of the work he had in hand and publish it in due course. 
  
Vayadhammā saṅkhārā
诸行无常
All things are impermanent

Michael Everson