Brief History Of Character Sets

The following is a short note I wrote on the history of character sets. Here you can find the pdf.

This document has been typeset with XeLaTeX, using the Emacs23-snapshot (gtk) and Ubuntu Hardy Heron. The pdf uses many fonts, the best I could find for every script, together with the website where I found it.

Fonts

First install the fonts, I used:

sudo apt install fonts-linuxlibertine fonts-mph-2b-damase fonts-ancient-scripts

and in your tex file:

\newfontinstance{\greek}{Linux Libertine O} % Greek
\newfontinstance{\phoenician}{MPH 2B Damase} % Phoenician
\newfontinstance{\hieroglyph}{Aegyptus} % Egyptian

XeLaTeX has changed since I first wrote this document, so I had to do the following hack:

\let\newfontinstance=\newfontfamily

Emacs and Unicode:

Emacs23 deals with Unicode nicely. In order to change the input method; that is, in order to change the script, use ucs-insert, and the Unicode hexadecimal number. For example, for the G1 vulture in the hyeroglyphs, use ucs-insert and the type F3B7A.