This document points to resources for the layout and presentation of text in languages that use the Osage 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 Osage text.
This document points to resources for Osage 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 Osage script. The information here is developed in conjunction with a document that summarises gaps where the Web fails to adequately support the Osage script.
The editor's draft of this document is being developed in the GitHub repository Americas Language Enablement (amlreq), 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.
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.
This document was created by Richard Ishida.
See also the GitHub contributors list for the Americas Language Enablement project, and the discussions related to the Osage script.
This document points to resources for Osage 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 Osage script. They include requirements, tests, GitHub discussions, type samples, and more,
The document focuses on typographic layout issues. For a deeper understanding of the Osage script and how it works see Osage Orthography Notes, which includes topics such as: Phonology, Vowels, Consonants, and Numbers.
This document should be used alongside a separate document, Osage Gap Analysis, which describes gaps in language support for users of the Osage 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 Osage 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 Osage 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 Osage script. See a list of unresolved questions for Osage experts. Each section below points to related discussions. See also the repository home page.
The Osage script is an alphabet, ie. a writing system in which both consonants and vowels are indicated.
Osage text runs left-to-right in horizontal lines. Words are separated by spaces. The script is bicameral. The shapes of the upper and lowercase forms are typically the same.
Osage pronunciation has a good deal of allophonic variation built into most sounds in its alphabet, influenced by surrounding sounds or by dialect.
Osage has 21 basic consonant letters. It also has letters to represent 5 pre-aspirated sounds but the language-learning curriculum of the Osage Nation doesn't use them, with aim of simplifying the learning experience. Another 3 ejective sounds are written using ʼ U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE.
This orthography is an alphabet where vowels are written using 10 vowel letters (20 in total), including some diphthongs. Nasalisation is very common and is marked using ◌͘U+0358 COMBINING DOT ABOVE RIGHT.
Three other combining marks can be used to indicate vowel length or accent, although they are not commonly used. None of the marks combine with their base characters to form precomposed shapes.
Numbers use ASCII digits.
Osage text runs left to right in horizontal lines.
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