Decolonizing Unicode: Can We Type Every Word That Has Ever Been Written? - AlterConf Portland 2017

To make the web a fully open and accessible platform, we need to ensure that everyone can communicate online in their native language. However, there are a lot of technical challenges to supporting the entire world’s languages in written text. Unicode aspires to be the international standard for representing text digitally. Let’s look at some of the decisions that were made when designing Unicode, and some of the amusing quirks that they lead to, as we think of the best way to design digital writing systems that are truly universally accessible.

Transcript

1. Decolonizing Unicode: Can We Type Every Word That Has Ever Been Written? Aditya Mukerjee Observability Engineer at Stripe AlterConf Portland November 4, 2017
2. 1. What is decolonization? What is Unicode? 2. What are the problems with Unicode? 3. How can we fix these problems? @chimeracoder
3. What is decolonization? @chimeracoder
4. Decolonization: process of actively reversing the influence of and damage caused by a hegemonic, imperial, or oppressive power. @chimeracoder
5. What is Unicode? @chimeracoder
6. The ’ problem @chimeracoder
7. @chimeracoder H E L L O ! ☺ 72 69 76 76 79 33 9786
8. @chimeracoder Д ∫ ∯ ㈥ ꣷ ﷽"#$% అ Ψ ◔
9. Who created Unicode? @chimeracoder
10. Unicode Consortium •Started in 1987 by engineers at Xerox and Apple @chimeracoder $7,000/year $12,000/year $18,000/year
11. What matters isn’t just who’s at the table – it’s who’s not at the table @chimeracoder
12. What is a character? @chimeracoder
13. Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic Alphabets @chimeracoder Character Name Unicode Number Character Latin Small Letter A 97 a Greek Small Letter Alpha 945 α Cyrillic Small Letter A 1,072 а Acute Accent 180 ´ Latin Small Letter A with Acute [Accent] 225 á
14. @chimeracoder Character Name Chinese (simplified) Chinese (traditional) Japanese Korean Vietnamese ‘edged tool, cutlery, knife edge’ 刃 刃 刃 刃 刃 Han-based Writing Systems
15. “catalog” vs. “catalogue” @chimeracoder “a” vs. “α ” “Stephen” vs. “Steven”
16. Han Unification @chimeracoder
17. @chimeracoder Character Name Unicode number Chinese (simplified) Chinese (traditional) Japanese Korean Vietnamese ‘edged tool, cutlery, knife edge’ 20,995 刃 刃 刃 刃 刃
18. @chimeracoder
19. An iterative approach to diversity is incompatible with a commitment to backwards-compatibility @chimeracoder Languages are hard and messy …but…
20. Emoji @chimeracoder
21. Racemoji @chimeracoder
22. 2. Structural biases are more subtle than skin tone @chimeracoder 1. Encoding skin tone into all interactions is not representation
23. What’s the solution? @chimeracoder
24. 1. Engineering convenience cannot be an excuse to sacrifice authenticity 2. We need qualified engineers and linguists from around the world 3. The writing system for a language must be developed by native speakers @chimeracoder
25. Unicode could be the first time in history that the writing systems for languages are defined by people who don’t even speak those languages @chimeracoder
26. Thank you! Aditya Mukerjee @chimeracoder