5 ms·

I love this character and I love the fact that is being updated. Just to get this right: at some point some person chose to doodle the letter instead of writing

I love this character and I love the fact that is being updated. Just to get this right: at some point some person chose to doodle the letter instead of writing it the correct way and now we have a corresponding Unicode character? Sort of amazing and it also makes you think ...

lmkg 4y ago
There was a... "tradition" is a strong word, perhaps "trend" is better. Authors making copies of the Bible or related works in Cyrillic, that the letter O (equivalent to Roman O) at the beginning of the word for "eye" would be stylized to look like an eye. There are a variety of glyphs along these lines: Ꙩ, Ꙫ, Ꙭ. All of them, including ꙮ, were added to Unicode as a single group. The glyph "ꙮ" was used to refer to an Angel with a whole buncha eyeballs, as one does. In terms of texts that survive today, this specific glyph has exactly one use in a single manuscript from the 1400's. It might have been used more, in texts which don't survive. But it is part of a larger trend, and I bet that its inclusion in Unicode depends strongly on that. But yeah, in itself the ꙮ character exists solely so that modern computers are capable of a more-faithful rendition of the transcription of a single handwritten copy of the Book of Psalms.
- happytoexplain 4y ago
  Thank you for describing the missing context. I couldn't understand why this stylized letter deserved a code point more than the uncountable others. I don't necessarily agree still, but the fact that this character was only unique within a larger trend makes it much more reasonable.
- henriquecm8 4y ago
  So you are saying that the glyph is now more biblically accurate?
  - int_19h 4y ago
    The Bible doesn't specify how many eyes seraphim have. "In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. ... Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings."
- cyral 4y ago
  > modern computers are capable of a more-faithful rendition of the transcription of a single handwritten copy of the Book of Psalms. I wonder if there is even a copy of the book transcribed to actual characters or if it only exists as scanned PDF copies? If anyone did transcribe it, would they have any knowledge that the ꙮ character even exists on computers?
- vintermann 4y ago
  Hah, and here I thought I was making a joke when I called it a biblically accurate O!
- caf 4y ago
  "meme"
Arnt 4y ago
I attended a Unicode meeting (or maybe two? not sure?) and came away with the impression that Unicode is like those open source projects that are used by half of the world and maintained by a handful of skilled and benevolent people. In Unicode's case I think most of them are paid, at least.
- shp0ngle 4y ago
  That is what I understood too. It doesn’t seem particularly hard to add new letters to Unicode too if you try a bit. However that is a bit harder with emojis, that have their own subcommittee, which seem to be more bureaucratic and also more popular than the rest of Unicode. Everyone wants to make a new emoji.
cillian64 4y ago
It does raise interesting questions about what counts as decoration/formatting and what counts as part of the actual text. You could view these ocular O characters as purely decorative (like the fancy first character in a paragraph) but they could also be seem as a quirk of spelling which should be represented in unicode. But the multiocular O really does seem like one monk got bored one time and did some doodling.

lmkg 4y ago

There was a... "tradition" is a strong word, perhaps "trend" is better. Authors making copies of the Bible or related works in Cyrillic, that the letter O (equivalent to Roman O) at the beginning of the word for "eye" would be stylized to look like an eye. There are a variety of glyphs along these lines: Ꙩ, Ꙫ, Ꙭ. All of them, including ꙮ, were added to Unicode as a single group. The glyph "ꙮ" was used to refer to an Angel with a whole buncha eyeballs, as one does. In terms of texts that survive today, this specific glyph has exactly one use in a single manuscript from the 1400's. It might have been used more, in texts which don't survive. But it is part of a larger trend, and I bet that its inclusion in Unicode depends strongly on that. But yeah, in itself the ꙮ character exists solely so that modern computers are capable of a more-faithful rendition of the transcription of a single handwritten copy of the Book of Psalms.

happytoexplain 4y ago
Thank you for describing the missing context. I couldn't understand why this stylized letter deserved a code point more than the uncountable others. I don't necessarily agree still, but the fact that this character was only unique within a larger trend makes it much more reasonable.
henriquecm8 4y ago
So you are saying that the glyph is now more biblically accurate?
- int_19h 4y ago
  The Bible doesn't specify how many eyes seraphim have. "In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. ... Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings."
cyral 4y ago
> modern computers are capable of a more-faithful rendition of the transcription of a single handwritten copy of the Book of Psalms. I wonder if there is even a copy of the book transcribed to actual characters or if it only exists as scanned PDF copies? If anyone did transcribe it, would they have any knowledge that the ꙮ character even exists on computers?
vintermann 4y ago
Hah, and here I thought I was making a joke when I called it a biblically accurate O!
caf 4y ago
"meme"

Arnt 4y ago

I attended a Unicode meeting (or maybe two? not sure?) and came away with the impression that Unicode is like those open source projects that are used by half of the world and maintained by a handful of skilled and benevolent people. In Unicode's case I think most of them are paid, at least.

shp0ngle 4y ago
That is what I understood too. It doesn’t seem particularly hard to add new letters to Unicode too if you try a bit. However that is a bit harder with emojis, that have their own subcommittee, which seem to be more bureaucratic and also more popular than the rest of Unicode. Everyone wants to make a new emoji.

cillian64 4y ago

It does raise interesting questions about what counts as decoration/formatting and what counts as part of the actual text. You could view these ocular O characters as purely decorative (like the fancy first character in a paragraph) but they could also be seem as a quirk of spelling which should be represented in unicode. But the multiocular O really does seem like one monk got bored one time and did some doodling.