Unicode Explained

son, at http://www.evertype.com/alphabets/.

It is extensive and based on detailed re-

search, although it partly applies different criteria to different languages: for some lan-

guages, it includes only the basic modern alphabet; for others, it lists historical char-

acters and other characters that are not used in normal writing. The CLDR database,

discussed in Chapter 11, contains information on the use of letters in different lan-

guages.

Variation of Writing Systems

The most widely used writing systems, or scripts, can be classified as follows:

Alphabetic scripts

Denote sounds with letters, though usually not in a strict one-to-one manner. Ex-

amples: Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts, each of which exists in different versions.

Consonant scripts, or abjads

Basically denote consonants, leaving vowels to be inferred; however, consonant

scripts may have letters for long vowels, and in some situations even short vowels

are written using small signs attached to consonants. Examples: Hebrew and Ara-

bic scripts.

Figure 1-4. Sample information on a character in the eki.ee database

28 | Chapter 1: Characters as Data

Abugida scripts

These use consonant letters that imply a particular vowel after the consonant, when

used in the base form. Alternatives with other vowels or without any vowel are

indicated ...