CMCL to Unicode bidirectional converter

CMCL


      

      

        
Unicode

        
        

        

        
        
        

          

            
          

          

            
          

        


        

        
        

      

    


    


    


      
Help and documentation

      


      



      

        
Unicode Coptic superlinear stroke best practices


        
    
          
  • Single-letter superlinear stroke must be rendered with combining U+0304.
            
    ⲁ̄ = U+2C81 U+0304 ?
    
          
    • 

          
  • Conjoining superlinear stroke (alias “Bindestrich”) must be rendered using combining U+FE24 after first character and U+FE25 after last character.
            
    ⲓ︤ⲥ︥ = U+2C93 U+FE24 U+2CA5 U+FE25 ?
    

            If the Bindestrich covers more than two characters, the in-between character(s) should be followed by U+FE26
            
    ⲓ︤ⲏ︦ⲙ︥ = U+2C93 U+FE24 U+2C8F U+FE26 U+2C99 U+FE25 ?
    
          
    • 

          
  • A single-letter superlinear stroke that is just as wide as the letter above which it is placed and also to be able to join two such single-letter strokes into a Bindestrich over 2 or more letters, it might be rendered with U+0305. This practice is not recommended and should be explicitly declared.
            
    ⲁ̅ = U+2C81 U+0305 ?
    

            
    ⲓ̅ⲥ̅ = U+2C93 U+0305 U+2CA5 U+0305 ?
    

            
    ⲓ̅ⲏ̅ⲙ̅ = U+2C93 U+0305 U+2C8F U+0305 U+2C99 U+0305 ?
    
          
    • 

          
  • The correct use of U+0305 must be that of marking letters as numerals.
            
    ⲁ̅ = U+2C81U+0305 ?
    
            
    ⲃ̅ = U+2C83U+0305 ?
    
            
    ⲅ̅ = U+2C85U+0305 ?
    
            
    ⲇ̅ = U+2C87U+0305 ?
    
            
    • 
        

        
Pay attention: U+0305 is very similar to U+FE26 (at least in Antinoou font), but these two strokesmust not be mixed up and their use must not be confused!

      


      

        
Caveats, known issues and “won't-fixes”

        
Special attention must be paid to diacritics, particularly to superlinear strokes (see above).
        The converter will properly work and promptly guess the correct form to use
        in most cases if conversion from cmcl to
        unicode is performed.
        But it will fail to correctly convert the way back, specially in most complex cases.


        
For example, CMCL a_ (Coptonew: a_) will
        be correctly converted to Antinoou: ⲁ̄ (Unicode U+2C81 U+304),
        but it will not work the way back. Antinoou: ⲁ̄
        (Unicode U+2C81 U+304) will be converted to CMCL a+
        (Coptonew: a+). This should not be considered a bug and no fix will be provided in the future.


        
The same is true for other combinations, eg:


        

          
            

              CMCL (Coptonew)
              
              Antinoou (Unicode)
              
              CMCL (Coptonew)
            

          
          
            

          
        




      



      

        
Coptonew nomina sacra shortcuts


        

          
            

              ASCII shortcut
              Unicode output
              
            

          

          
            
          
        


      


      

        
CMCL's entities

        

          
            

              Regex
              Verbose explanation
              Meaning
              Replace policy
              Examples
            

          
          
            

              &([0-9]{1,2})n;
              an integer of one or two digits followed by n
              Lacuna of known length
              plus-minus (±, U+00B1) character followed by the number of missing characters, enclosed by brackets
              &2n; = [±2]
            

            

              &([0-9]{1,2})\?;
              an integer of one or two digits followed by ?
              Lacuna of supposed length
              space and dot repeted the supposed length, enclosed by parentheses
              &2?; = ( . .)
            

            

              &\?(cap|capitale);
              ? followed by string cap or capitale
              Unknown capital character
              space followed by dot (same output as entity &1?;)
              &?cap; =  .
            

            

              &[0-9]{1,2}b;
              an integer of one or two digits followed by question mark
              Blank space of known length
              Not to be rendered
              &2b; = 
            

            

              &([a-z]{1})\?;
              one alphabetic character followed by question mark
              Uncertain alphabetic character
              The alphabetic character followed by subliteral dot (U+0323)
              &a?; = ạ
            

            

              &coppa;
              coppa string
              Character coppa
              Character coppa (U+03D9)
              &coppa; = ϙ
            

            

              &(basilios|Crs|Cs|eiote|
ekklHsia|fq|i:lHm|iHl|iHs|
ilHm|is|isrl|iws|js|monaCos|
oute|pna);		
              One of the following strings (comma separated): basilios, Crs, Cs, eiote, ekklHsia, fq, i:lHm, iHl, iHs, ilHm, is, isrl, iws, js, monaCos, oute, pna
              
              The same string (CMCL encoding system) converted to Unicode
              &ekklHsia; = ⲉⲕⲕⲗⲏⲥⲓⲁ
            

            

              &ebol_compresso;
              string: ebol_compresso
              CMCL's ebol equivalent in Unicode
              ⲉⲃⲟⲗ
              &ebol_compresso; = ⲉⲃⲟⲗ
            

            

              &etcompresso;
              string: etcompresso
              CMCL's et equivalent in Unicode
              ⲉⲧ
              &etcompresso; = ⲉⲧ
            

            

              &Hspir;
              string: Hspir
              Heta with combining dot above (U+2C8F U+0307)
              ⲏ̇
              &Hspir; = ⲏ̇
            

            

              &.b;
              
              Simple dot
              .
              &.b; = .
            

          
        

      

    



    

    
cmcl2unicode is an open source software available for
      download or fork on GitHub.
    Please report any issue you might encounter
      here.

    
    

    
How to cite

    
This software is archived in Zenodo. Please cite it by referring the DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.76262299

    
DOI

    
    

    
PAThs
Tracking Papyrus and Parchment Paths. http://paths.uniroma1.it

    
An Archaeological Atlas of Coptic Literature
      Literary Texts in their Geographical Context: Production, Copying, Usage, Dissemination and Preservation