SCA - West Kingdom College of Heralds | Awards and Honors

Awards and Honors

Special Character Encoding

When Da'ud ibn Auda was the Laurel King of Arms, he decided it was necessary to find a way to encode in ASCII characters some of the characters used in people's names from some languages that ASCII and ANSII character sets could not display -- these are the most common character sets used by most computer Operating Systems. Some of the characters shown below can be shown in the Windows ANSI (and sometimes the ASCII) character sets, as well as HTML, and may actually display in the name as it appears in the award list. Some of these may not, and that's the purpose of this encoding scheme.

So, what Da'ud came up with was a way to show these characters by 'embedding' them in the name surrounded by brackets {}.

The College of Arms of the SCA is currently using this scheme to show these characters for folks' registered names, and the Awards List data may show some of them as well using this special encoding, usually these will appear as an 'aka' (also known as), such as: Eliska z Jihlavy (aka Eli{sv}ka z Jihlavy). This means that the name Eliska should have the 's' replaced with 'š', giving: Eliška z Jihlavy. The chart below shows the basics of this notation, and how to interpret it.

The following is based on this document: Da'ud Notation.

Due to the fact that HTML can actually display many of these extra characters, the following is a listing of the codes, and what they look like (if HTML can display them). This might be useful for scribes, and anyone interested in these things.

Code	Name	Appears As	HTML Entity
{'A}	A grave	À	À
{'a}	a grave	à	à
{A'}	A acute	Á	Á
{a'}	a acute	á	á
{A^}	A circumflex	Â	Â
{a^}	a circumflex	â	â
{A~}	A tilde	Ã	Ã
{a~}	a tilde	ã	ã
{A:} or {A"}	A diaeresis/umlaut	Ä	Ä
{a:} or {a"}	a diaeresis/umlaut	ä	ä
{Ao}	A ring	Å	Å
{ao}	a ring	å	å
{a,}	a ogonek	ą	ą
{a-}	a macron	ā	ā
{AE}	AE ligature	Æ	Æ
{ae}	ae ligature	æ	æ

{b-}	b topbar	b with a bar over it ( ¯ )

{C,}	C cedilla	Ç	Ç
{c,}	c cedilla	ç	ç
{Cv}	C caron	Č	Č
{cv}	c caron	č	č

{DH}	capital eth	Ð	Ð
{dh}	small eth	ð	ð

{'E}	E grave	È	È
{'e}	e grave	è	è
{E'}	E acute	É	É
{e'}	e acute	é	é
{E^}	E circumflex	Ê	Ê
{e^}	e circumflex	ê	ê
{E:} or {E"}	E diaeresis/umlaut	Ë	Ë
{e:} or {e"}	e diaeresis/umlaut	ë	ë
{E,}	E ogonek	Ę	Ę
{e,}	e ogonek	ę	ę
{e-}	e macron	ē	ē
{ev}	e caron	ĕ	ĕ

{gh}	yogh	Ʒ	Ʒ

{'I}	I grave	Ì	Ì
{'i}	i grave	ì	ì
{I'}	I acute	Í	Í
{i'}	i acute	í	í
{I^}	I circumflex	Î	Î
{i^}	i circumflex	î	î
{I:} or {I"}	I diaeresis/umlaut	Ï	Ï
{i:} or {i"}	i diaeresis/umlaut	ï	ï
{i-}	i macron	ī	ī

{l/}	l stroke	ł	ł

{m.}	m dot	m with dot below it

{n'}	n acute	ń	ń
{N~}	N tilde	Ñ	Ñ
{n~}	n tilde	ñ	ñ
{n.}	n dot	n with dot below it

{'O}	O grave	Ò	Ò
{'o}	o grave	ò	ò
{O'}	O acute	Ó	Ó
{o'}	o acute	ó	ó
{O^}	O circumflex	Ô	Ô
{o^}	o circumflex	ô	ô
{O~}	O tilde	Õ	Õ
{o~}	o tilde	õ	õ
{O:} or {O"}	O diaeresis/umlaut	Ö	Ö
{o:} or {o"}	o diaeresis/umlaut	ö	ö
{OE}	OE ligature	Œ	&OElig;
{oe}	oe ligature	œ	&oelig;
{o,}	o ogonek	ǫ	ǫ
{o-}	o macron	ō	ō
{O/}	O slash	Ø	Ø
{o/}	o slash	ø	ø

{rv}	r caron	ř	ř

{S'}	S acute	Ś	Ś
{Sv}	S caron	Š	&Scaron;
{sv}	s caron	š	&scaron;
{s.}	s dot	s with dot below it
{sz}	s-zed (German sharp s)	ß	ß

{Th}	Thorn	Þ	Þ
{th}	thorn	þ	þ

{U,}	U grave	Ù	Ù
{u,}	u grave	ù	ù
{U'}	U acute	Ú	Ú
{u'}	u acute	ú	ú
{U^}	U circumflex	Û	Û
{u^}	u circumflex	û	û
{U:} or {U"}	U diaeresis/umlaut	Ü	Ü
{u:} or {u"}	u diaeresis/umlaut	ü	ü
{u-}	u macron	ū	ū

{w^}	w circumflex	ŵ	ŵ

{Y'}	Y acute	Ý	Ý
{y'}	y acute	ý	Ý
{Y:} or {Y"}	Y diaeresis/umlaut	Ÿ	&Yuml;
{y^}	y circumflex	ŷ	ŷ
{y~}	y tilde	y with tilde ( ˜ )

{z'}	z acute	ź	ź
{Zv}	Z caron	Ž	Ž
{zv}	z caron	ž	ž

Some more descriptions:

An accent grave is an accent over a letter that goes to the left (opposite of the accent accute -- `).
An accent acute is an accent over a letter that goes to the right ( ´ ).
A circumflex is a 'hat' character over the top of a letter ( ˆ ).
A tilde is a curly line over the top of a letter ( ˜ ).
A diaeresis or umlaut is two dots over a letter ( ¨ ).
A caron is an inverted circumflex ( ˆ ) character, over the top of a letter.
A macron is a bar over the top of the letter, like with a long 'a' ( ¯ ).
An ogonek is a hook at the bottom of the letter, similar to a cedilla ( ¸ ), but going the other way. More information on this can be found at: Wikipedia Description of Oganeks. This has some good images to show where the ogonek comes off the bottom of the letter, the direction, etc, including for many different fonts (and incorrect versus correct versions).

The meanings of these various characters will vary from language to language, so it's impossible to explain what effect they might have on the pronunciation of a letter, without knowing the specific language being used. Not being a linguist, I've had to glean details from other sources for this document. -- Hirsch von Henford, Golem Herald

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