Here at SIL International we are beginning to put together a project that
involves the development of a website called ScriptSource. The goal is to
provide an accessible place to share information about scripts and writing
systems that will be useful at the policy level (e.g., government
agencies), academic level, and implementation level (development of
computer resources to support various writing systems). We want to make it
collaborative, so that those of you out there with expertise in various
scripts will be able to contribute your knowledge.
One of the main components of the site will be a catalog database that is
designed to hold fairly detailed information about how writing is used
around the world. SIL's particular interest is in minority languages, so
we'll pay particular attention to the ability to handle the various
adaptations that are needed for these languages. Our current database model
represents the following kinds of objects and their relationships to each
other:
* languages (these will be equivalent to items in SIL's Ethnologue
database)
* scripts (the major systems like Roman/Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic,
Devanagari, etc)
* writing systems (a script as it is used to write a particular language)
* characters (i.e., as they are defined by Unicode)
* graphemes (recognizable elements of writing systems), including
multigraphs
In addition there will be ways to attach files (documentation, pictures,
resources like fonts and keyboards) and bibliographic information at each
level.
We'd be interested in hearing how others might envision using such a
system. What kind of information needs to be represented beyond what I've
already described, and what kind of queries do you think would be useful?