(R)Unicode: Encoding and Sustainability Issues in Runology

Abstract

[Revised version. Revision marked in footnote. ]In this article, the basic premises of reading a runic inscription and transferring the data into digital formats are discussed. Particular attention will be on the Runic block in the Unicode standard for digital character encoding, which currently does not suit the needs of the academic runological community. The proposed solution builds upon the existing standard without adding unnecessary additional characters, but with the ability to encode form-variants on top of the base character while retaining backwards compatibility, an approach from which other archaic scripts like Cuneiform or Khitan that suffer of similar encoding issues, could also benefit.