Ethiopic Script Resources

W3C Group Draft Note

More details about this document
This version:
https://www.w3.org/TR/2024/DNOTE-ethi-lreq-20240815/
Latest published version:
https://www.w3.org/TR/ethi-lreq/
Latest editor's draft:
https://w3c.github.io/elreq/ethi/
History:
https://www.w3.org/standards/history/ethi-lreq/
Commit history
Editor:
(W3C)
Feedback:
GitHub w3c/elreq (pull requests, new issue, open issues)

Abstract

This document points to resources for the layout and presentation of text in languages that use the Ethiopic script. The target audience includes developers of Web standards and technologies, such as HTML, CSS, Mobile Web, Digital Publications, and Unicode, as well as implementers of web browsers, ebook readers, and other applications that need to render Ethiopic text.

Status of This Document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at https://www.w3.org/TR/.

This document points to resources for Ethiopic script layout and text support on the Web and in eBooks. These requirements provide information for Web technologies such as CSS, HTML and digital publications about how to support languages written using the Ethiopic script. The information here is developed in conjunction with a document that summarises gaps where the Web fails to adequately support the Ethiopic script.

The editor's draft of this document is being developed in the GitHub repository Ethiopic Language Enablement (elreq), with contributors from the W3C Internationalization Interest Group. It is published by the Internationalization Working Group. The end target for this document is a Working Group Note.

To make it easier to track comments, please raise separate issues or emails for each comment, and point to the section you are commenting on using a URL.

This document was published by the Internationalization Working Group as a Group Draft Note using the Note track.

Group Draft Notes are not endorsed by W3C nor its Members.

This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.

The W3C Patent Policy does not carry any licensing requirements or commitments on this document.

This document is governed by the 03 November 2023 W3C Process Document.

Some links on this page point to repositories or pages to which information will be added over time. Initially, the link may produce no results, but as issues, tests, etc. are created they will show up.

Links that have a gray color led to no content the last time this document was updated. They are still live, however, since relevant content could be added at any time. When the document is updated, links that now point to results will have their live colour restored.

1. Introduction

1.1 Contributors

This document was created by Richard Ishida.

See also the GitHub contributors list for the Ethiopic Language Enablement project, and the discussions related to the Ethiopic script.

1.2 About this document

This document points to resources for Ethiopic script layout and text support on the Web and in eBooks. These resources provide information for developers of Web technologies such as CSS, HTML and digital publications, and for application developers, about how to support languages written using the Ethiopic script. They include requirements, tests, GitHub discussions, type samples, and more,

The document focuses on typographic layout issues. For a deeper understanding of the Ethiopic script and how it works see Amharic (Ethiopic) Orthography Notes, which includes topics such as: Phonology, Syllables, and Numbers.

1.3 Gap analysis

This document should be used alongside a separate document, Ethiopic Gap Analysis, which describes gaps in language support for users of the Ethiopic script, and prioritises and describes the impact of those gaps on the user.

Gap reports are brought to the attention of spec and browser implementers, and are tracked via the Gap Analysis Pipeline. (Filter for Ethiopic script items)

The document Language enablement index points to this document and others, and provides a central location for developers and implementers to find information related to various scripts.

The W3C also has a repository with discussion threads related to the Ethiopic script, including requests from developers to the user community for information about how scripts/languages work, and a notification system that tracks issues in W3C working groups related to the Ethiopic script. See a list of unresolved questions for Ethiopic experts. Each section below points to related discussions. See also the repository home page.

2. Ethiopic Script Overview

The Ethiopic script is a featural syllabary, ie. each symbol typically represents both a consonant and a vowel, but vowel components are indicated by largely standardised adaptations to the base consonant shape.

The Ethiopic script runs left to right in horizontal lines. There is no case distinction.

Modern Amharic generally uses spaces to separate words, but sometimes still uses the Ethiopic wordspace character, instead.

The Ethiopic script blocks in Unicode list over 453 characters. Amharic uses 282 syllable characters: comprising 15 standalone vowel syllables, and the remainder for CV syllables.

Gemination and consonant clusters are not indicated by the script (although some diacritics have been proposed for that, which are encoded in Unicode). Silent vowels are typically indicated using the 6th order syllable, which creates some ambiguity.

The script has only the three just mentioned combining characters, which are rarely used. Characters don't interact, and the baseline is standard.

Ethiopic does have a range of native punctuation. In particular, although words in modern text are increasingly separated by spaces they may be separated by a wordspace character instead.

Ethiopic also has its own numeric digits, which are used in an additive way, rather than in the way numbers are formed in Western text.

3. All topics

4. Glyph shaping & positioning

4.1 Fonts & font styles

4.2 Context-based shaping & positioning

4.3 Letterform slopes, weights, & italics

5. Typographic units

5.1 Characters & encoding

5.2 Grapheme/word segmentation & selection

6. Punctuation & inline features

6.1 Phrase & section boundaries

6.2 Quotations & citations

6.3 Emphasis & highlighting

6.4 Abbreviation, ellipsis & repetition

6.5 Inline notes & annotations

6.6 Text decoration & other inline features

6.7 Data formats & numbers

7. Line & paragraph layout

7.1 Line breaking & hyphenation

7.2 Text alignment & justification

7.3 Text spacing

7.4 Baselines, line height, etc.

7.5 Lists, counters, etc.

7.6 Styling initials

8. Page & book layout

8.1 General page layout & progression

8.2 Grids & tables

8.3 Footnotes, endnotes, etc

8.4 Page headers, footers, etc

8.5 Forms & user interaction