Version 2.1, 7 March 2019
Version history:
1.0, 29 November 2016
2.0, 7 December 2018
2.1, 7 March 2019
Language and script
The term ‘Tangut’ designated the people, the language and the script. The Chinese designation is 西夏文, Xī Xià wén.
Fonts
Tangut Yinchuan, currently (Dec. of 2018) the only font covering both of the Unicode Tangut ranges.
Copyright mention of Tangut Yinchuan font
When the font Tangut Yinchuan is used in a publication, its copyright holder must be mentioned:
The copyright of the Tangut Yinchuan font used in this publication resides with Prof. Jing Yongshi 景永时 of the Beifang Ethnic University (北方民族大学) in Yinchuan. For more information about this font see http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Fonts/Yinchuan.html.
This copyright text should be added on p. IV of books, as a separate paragraph below the mention of the Brill typeface. In journals, it may be set in a footnote at the beginning of each article in which it is used (at the first occurrence of Tangut text, or in a separate note at the end of main text of the article, but before any bibliography or other back matter).
Font sizes
Tangut Yinchuan font sizes:
Brill 11 pt: ~ Tangut Yinchuan 10 pt, tracking +70/1000 units;
Brill 10 pt: ~ Tangut Yinchuan 9 pt, tracking +70/1000 units;
Brill 9 pt: ~ Tangut Yinchuan 8.5 pt, tracking +70/1000 units.
Leading of all-Tangut paragraphs
Because of the large size and intricate detail of Tangut characters, a more generous leading than the Brill Typographical Style baseline grid must be applied to all-Tangut paragraphs, at 10 pt (again with tracking +75/1000 units): 16 pt.
Transcoding from non-Unicode fonts and text to Unicode text
Previous to the inclusion of the Tangut script in the Unicode Standard there were a few fonts in use among scholars, mostly mapping Tangut glyphs to Chinese code points. Text set in a few of these fonts can be transcoded to Unicode text using the Web app made by Andrew West:
XXZT to Unicode (note that there are at least two versions, each with a slightly different glyph complement and encoding);
