unifont-johab631 - Man Page

Unifont Johab 6/3/1 file format

This document describes the structure of the Unifont Johab 6/3/1 file format used as input to Hangul syllable generation programs. Currently, three programs in the Unifont package utilize files in this format: unigen-hangul(1), johab2html(1), and johab2syllabes(1). The easiest way to visualize the two-dimensional organization of all these Hangul letter variations is by examining the HTML output of johab2html(1) in a web browser.

The "hangul-base.hex" file distributed with Unifont begins at hexadecimal code point 0xE000, which is the start of the Uniocde Plane 0 Private Use Area (PUA).

The Johab 6/3/1 file format is divided into these ranges, in hexadecimal:

Range: Hangul
E000: Blank (filler) glyph.
E001-E2FA: Initial consonants (choseong), 6 variations each for the Unicode Hangul Jamo choseong range of U+1100..U+115E and then the Unicode Jamo Extended-A choseong range of U+A960..U+A97C.
E2FB-E420: Vowels and diphthongs (jungseong), 3 variations each for the Unicode Hangul Jamo jungseong range of U+1161..U+11A7 and then the Unicode Jamo Extended-B jungseong range of U+D7B0..U+D7C6.
E421-E479: Final consonants (jongseong), 1 variation each for the Unicode Hangul Jamo jongseong range of U+11A8..U+11FF and then the Unicode Jamo Extended-B jongseong range of U+D7CB..U+D7FB.
E500-E5FF: Individual Hangul Jamo letters, 1 variation each for the Unicode Hangul Jamo range of U+1100..U+11FF.
E600-E61F: Individual Hangul Jamo Extended-A letters, 1 variation each for the Unicode Hangul Jamo Extended-A range of U+A960..U+A97F.
E620-E66F: Individual Hangul Jamo Extended-B letters, 1 variation each for the Unicode Hangul Jamo Extended-B range of U+D7B0..D7FF.

This johab scheme is much easier to use than the original Unifont 10/3 or 4/4 johab encoding. That original format was adopted from Hanterm.

Filler Glyph

The first glyph in the file is a filler, with hexadecimal values of 64 zeroes. This is used as a filler for Hangul syllable combinations that do not contain one or two of the three parts of a Hangul syllable.

Choseong

These are the initial consonants in a syllable. Each choseong has six variations:

Combination with a vertical vowel
Combination with a horizontal vowel
Combination with a vertical plus horizontal diphthong
Combination with a vertical vowel and final consonant
Combination with a horizontal vowel and final consonant
Combination with a vertical plus horizontal diphthong, and a final consonant.

All six variations are created in order for the first consonant (U+1100, HANGUL CHOSEONG KIYEOK) in the file entries E001-E006, then all six for the second consonant (U+1101, HANGUL CHOSEONG SSANGKIYEOK) in the file entries E007-E00C, etc.

Jungseong

These are the medial vowels and diphthongs in a syllable. Each jungseong has three variations:

With initial consonant but no final consonant
With initial consonant and final consonant, except final consonant neiun
With intial consonant, and with final consonant nieun.

Similarly as with choseong, all three variations are created in order for the first vowel (U+1161, HANGUL JUNGSEONG A) in the file entries E2FB-E2FD, then all three for the second vowel (U+1162, HANGUL JUNGSEONG AE), etc.

Jongseong

These are the final consonants. Each has only one variation. The program unigen-hangul(1) additionally shifts these final consonants one column to the right when the vowel in the syllable has two long vertical strokes along the right edge, as in U+1162 (HANGUL Jungseong AE). The other two programs in the Unifont package that form syllables, johab2syllables(1) and unijohab2html(1), overlay all jongseong exactly as they are encoded, with no shifting or extending.

Hangul Jamo

The entire Unicode Hangul Jamo range, U+1100..U+11FF, appears in entries E500-E5FF.

Hangul Extended-a Jamo

The Hangul Jamo Extended-A range, U+A960..U+A97F in E600-E61F.

Hangul Extended-B Jamo

The Hangul Jamo Extended-B range, U+D7B0..U+D7FF in E620-E66F.

Files

Unifont .hex files in Johab 6/3/1 encoding. Programs wishing to interact with this johab encoding can use functions contained in the file unihangul-support.c. The programs johab2syllables(1), unigen-hangul(1), and unijohab2html(1) all use various functions in unihangul-support.c to generate their output.

Author

Ho-Seok Ee created the original Johab 6/2/1 format and drew the modern Hangul letters. Paul Hardy drew the ancient vowels and suggested adding a third vowel variation, for combining with final consonant (jongseong) niuen, resulting in a Johab 6/3/1 encoding. Ho-Seok Ee suggested shifting final consonants one position to the right for combination with vowels having two long vertical strokes on the right edge of a syllable. Minseo Lee provided feedback on letter design details.

License

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Bugs

No known bugs exist.