Scripts Details Key
The following describes information and values that are shown in the Script Details section of the script pages.
- Code: this is defined by the ISO-15924 standard. It consists of four characters.
- Script type - possible values are:
- Region - possible values include:
- African
- American
- Artificial - specifically invented rather than having developed historically over time
- Central Asian
- East Asian
- European
- Indic
- Insular Southeast Asian - historically unrelated to other Southeast Asian scripts
- Mainland Southeast Asian
- Middle Eastern
- Pacific
- Signed Language
- Status - possible values are:
- Current - currently in use for currently-spoken languages
- Historical - used in the past
- Academic - developed for academic purposes
- Fictional - developed for use in books, TV shows, etc.
- Unclear
- Direction - possible values are:
- LTR - written horizontally left to right
- RTL - written horizontally right to left
- RTL bidirectional - written right to left with numbers written left to right
- vertical (LTR) - written vertically with the columns laid out left to right
- vertical (LTR) and horizontal (LTR) - may be written with either approach
- vertical (LTR) and horizontal (RTL) - may be written with either approach
- vertical (RTL) - written vertically with the columns laid out right to left
- vertical (RTL) and horizontal (LTR) - may be written with either approach
- vertical (RTL) and horizontal (RTL) - may be written with either approach
- boustrophedon - written LTR and RTL on alternating lines
- other
- Baseline - possible values are:
- hanging - glyphs are aligned at the top as if hanging from a “clothesline”
- centered - glyphs are aligned at their vertical centers
- bottom - glyphs are aligned at or near the bottom of the glyphs
- vertical - glyphs are asligned at their horizontal centers; used for vertical scripts
- Also see baseline.
- Case - the script includes both upper- and lower-case forms
- White space - possible values are:
- between words - white space is required between words
- between phrases - white space is used between grammatical phrases
- discretionary - white space may be used to enhance readability
- none - white space is never used
- Complex behaviors - describes complexities such as
- contextual shaping - the shape of glyphs may change depending on neighboring characters
- complex positioning - the position of glyphs may change
- reordering - the visible or rendered order of the glyphs does not match the logical or storage order
- split graphs - some characters are be rendered with two or more glyphs that are not visibly adjacent
- ligatures - two or more characters may be rendered with a single glyph
- Also see complex script
- OpenType code - defined by the OpenType font system for indicating script-specific behaviors
- ISO 15924 Numeric Code / Key - a technical field that can be used to sort scripts by type; part of the ISO 15924 standard
