Manuel de Codage

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The Manuel de Codage (abbr. MdC) is a standard system for the computer-encoding of transliterations of Egyptian hieroglyphic texts.

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[edit] History

In 1984 a committee was charged with the task to develop a uniform system for the encoding of hieroglyphic texts on the computer. The resulting Manual for the Encoding of Hieroglyphic Texts for Computer-input (Jan Buurman, Nicolas Grimal, Jochen Hallof, Michael Hainsworth and Dirk van der Plas, Informatique et Egyptologie 2, Paris 1988) is generally shortened to Manuel de Codage. It presents an easy to use way of encoding hieroglyphic writing as well as the abbreviated hieroglyphic transliteration. The encoding system of the Manuel de Codage has since been adopted by international Egyptology as the official common standard for registering hieroglyphic texts on the computer.

Egyptologists have scheduled a revision for 2007 of the Manuel de Codage, in order to ensure broader implementation in current and future software.

[edit] List of Gardiner's fundamental hieroglyphs and their transliteration

Image:Hieros.gif

The MdC specifies a method for electronically encoding complete ancient Egyptian texts, indicating features such as the placement, orientation, colour, and even size of individual hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphs not included in the above list of fundamentals are referred to by their Gardiner number. This system is used (though frequently with modifications) by various software packages developed for typesetting hieroglyphic texts (such as WinGlyph, MacScribe, InScribe, Glyphotext, WikiHiero, and others). It is loosely based on the common representation of algebraic formulae. Some of the rules are: [1]

  • the "-"-sign concatenates the signs or group of signs between which it is placed.
  • the ":"-sign places the first sign or group of signs above the second sign
  • the "*"-sign juxtaposes two signs or groups of signs
  • the rounded brackets "( )" form a compact grouping of signs arranged according to the other rules, which is treated as if it were a single sign
  • the "< >"-brackets mark cartouches
  • the "!"-sign marks an end of line
  • the "!!"-sign marks an end of page

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Jan Buurman, Inventaire des signes hiéroglyphiques en vue de leur saisie informatique, Impr. Lienhart 1988; Diffusion de Boccard
  1. ^ Hans van den Berg: Manuel de Codage

[edit] External links