Below I use standard Russian Cyrillic characters; please be sure that you have appropriate fonts installed. If everything is OK, the following two lines must look similarly (encoding CP-1251):
(sample Cyrillic letters) АабВЕеЗКкМНОопРрСсТуХхЧЬ (Latin letters and digits) Aa6BEe3KkMHOonPpCcTyXx4b
Compare also with the proposed shape of psi (Section 36).
In modern-style fonts, IA probably may look as follows:
I may propose two styles of lowercase variant:
See also Section 7. Shapes of CYRILLIC LETTER UK and proposed CYRILLIC LETTER IK are discussed in Section 38.
In general, we have to systematize the following set of objects:
(1)
modern Cyrillic letter "У" (U+0423/0443);
(2) modern
"Asian" Cyrillic letter "straight Y" (U+04AE/04AF);
(3)
Cyrillic letter izhitsa (U+0474/0475);
(4) older Cyrillic
ligature "uk" (V over O);
(5) older Cyrillic letter
"ik";
(6) older Cyrillic digraph "on-ik" ОY
(U+0478/0479);
(7) older Cyrillic digraph "on-izhitsa" ОV
(see Section 8).
Currently Unicode explicitly has (1), (2), (3), and (6). (4) and (5) are mentioned in the form "basic Old Cyrillic uk is unified with CYRILLIC LETTER U". This expression is not very clear, because both (4) and (5) may be referred to as "basic Old Cyrillic uk".
Unifying (1)=(5) is supported by glyph shapes, but (1)=(4) is supported by comparison of old and new writing style of almost each Cyrillic-based Slavonic language: Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian and Ukrainian. The pictures are samples of almost modern printed books:
(i) an early variant of Russian "civil" font (sample printout of 1708; image taken from: А. Шицгал, "Русский гражданский шрифт 1708--1958" (Moscow, 1958), page 45:
But how to reasonably split (4) and (5)? One possible solution is (1)=(5) and (2)=(4): really, both (2) and (4) are slightly modified izhitsas with phonetical values between [ee] and [oo]... But if (1)=(5) cannot be accepted, then we may propose to simultaneously introduce (5) and (4) as separate letters: CYRILLIC LETTER LIGATURE UK and CYRILLIC LETTER IK. This solution is consistent enough: we explicitly separate all "modern" varians of У from older ones. The same method as in separation of Я and older variants -- yus and IA.
Concerning the shape of CYRILLIC LETTER LIGATURE UK, I may propose the following:
Shapes of CYRILLIC LETTER UK and proposed CYRILLIC LETTER IK are discussed in Section 38.
(i) if the paragraph starts with "Оу", then only the "О" part may be represented as an initial (in larger font or in artistic style). These are samples from Matthew 5 in the Church-Slavonic Bible (1900, Saint-Petersburg), Gospels (1907, Saint-Petersburg), another Bible (1879, Moscow):
(ii) when initial letter of a word must be specially marked, the operation often applies only to "О" part of "Оу". See the page of contents in Требник (1897, Moscow):
(iii) there are examples of "оу" being considered as containing letter "о" for the purpose of alphabetical sorting. This is a page from "Лексис" of Лаврентий Зизаний, where words starting (in today's alphabet) with both "о" and "у" are all collected under "о" (image taken from repring of 1964, Kiev, p. 63):
(iv) when typeset using letter-spacing, parts of "Оу" behave as if they were independent letters. See, for example, the page from Часословъ, Kiev, 1848, folio 19 v. (the 2nd count):
The same image may also be attached to Section 5 above (regarding titlecase form ОУ); it is interesting also that initial letter is "Оу" here, but an extra "у" ("ik") was printed separately.
Here we can see words оученiа, оупражняшеся, Епiкоvрми, длъготоу, оубо, оу, ермиоv, оубо, непщоуемwмъ, Павлоv, ктомоу, преимоуществомъ, оудръжаваше, wткоуду, оустахъ, оу, оу, Iоvдей, оу...
(i) from fol. 38 of the book "Щит веры", Moscow, 1913:
(ii) from the dictionary of И. И. Срезневский: "Материалы для словаря древнерусского языка", vol. 1, Saint-Petersburg, 1893 (reprinted in 1989), from columns 490 and 708:
The shape of "CYRILLIC LETTER DOTLESS DECIMAL I" must probably be the same as the 2nd part in Ы/ы (i.e. lowercase letter must look like smaller version of uppercase one).
(ii) To make distinction with that "Old Cyrillic zelo" I propose "CYRILLIC LETTER ANGULAR (SHARP) ZE WITH HOOK", cf. Section 22 below. Possible shape may be the following:
Then, let us think for possible future adding of another forms of "Ы", like "ЪИ", "ЪL" etc. I think that the naming system must be ready to describe all these forms in a uniform way. Something like this:
Ы -- CYRILLIC LETTER
YERU;
ЪI -- CYRILLIC LETTER YERU (WITH BACK YER AND
DECIMAL I);
ЬИ -- CYRILLIC LETTER YERU (WITH FRONT YER
AND OCTAL I);
ЪИ -- CYRILLIC LETTER YERU (WITH BACK YER
AND OCTAL I);
ЬL -- CYRILLIC LETTER YERU (WITH FRONT YER
AND IOTA-LIKE I);
ЪL -- CYRILLIC LETTER YERU (WITH BACK
YER AND IOTA-LIKE I);
Ь-I -- CYRILLIC LETTER YERU
(TIED);
Ъ-I -- CYRILLIC LETTER YERU (TIED BACK YER AND
DECIMAL I);
Ь-И -- CYRILLIC LETTER YERU (TIED FRONT YER
AND OCTAL I);
Ъ-И -- CYRILLIC LETTER YERU (TIED BACK YER
AND OCTAL I);
Ь-L -- CYRILLIC LETTER YERU (TIED FRONT YER
AND IOTA-LIKE I);
Ъ-L -- CYRILLIC LETTER YERU (TIED BACK
YER AND IOTA-LIKE I).
See also Section 9 (iota-like "i").
(i) Pastrovski zakonnik, 18th
c. (image taken from: V. Mosin, "Cirilski rukopisi
Jugoslavenske akademije", vol. 2, Beograd, 1952, p.
104):
Here we can see, for example, words "heвоика" (dje), "маhедонскаго" (tshe), "м(е)с(е)ца маhа 21 денъ" (iotation).
Here coexist the oldest position of djerv (soft "g") in "еhипьтськои"; soft signs like in Italian "gn": "hнеговимь", "учиhну", "вечерhна"; modern Serbian usage of TSHE: "познати hемо га", "веhе", "мимоходеhихь"... But the character is the same!
As you can see, "vertical tilde" systematically corresponds to Ь, whereas Ч-like sign corresponds to Ъ: (болЬшее, могутЪстве, безЪболезние, благодеянЬми, нанЬже, обезЪстудися, вЪ, вЪземлютЪся). See also Smorticky's grammar (but he uses sharp form of "^" instead of vertical tilde).
But I strongly oppose your idea of glyph changes in U+047C/047D. Yes, Unicode objects "CYRILLIC LETTER OMEGA WITH TITLO" were probably intended to represent exclamatory omegas, but now at least there is no contradiction between name and glyph shape: object is named "omega with titlo", picture also demonstrates a sort of omega with titlo. Yes, omega with titlo is very exotic combination, but there are examples of it:
(i) Боню Ст. Ангелов, "Из старата българска, руска и сръбска литература", Sofia, 1978, p. 7:
(ii) А. Н. Стеценко, Хрестоматия по старославянскому языку, Moscow, 1984, p. 10:
(iii) the name "Iwaннъ" may be abbreviated as "I" + "omega with titlo" in header lines of John Chrysosthomos book of 1614 (see two sample pages in Sections 8 and 15 above).
In modern-style fonts, the shape of broad omega may be designed as follows:
The image shows both exclamatory variant of the letter as well as "plain" broad omega without diactitical marks.
Now let's discuss the nature, origin and shape of supralinear element of the exclamatory omega. Its name is "великий апостроф", see page 383 of the book: Codex slovenicus rerum grammaticarum. edidit V. Jagic. Berlin, 1896 (reprint: Muenchen, 1968):
Structure of velikiy apostrof is smooth breathing + circumflex, see the following page: Мелетий Смотрицкий, Грамматiки Славенския правилное Сvнтагма, Евье (Jewie, now Vievis), 1619 (reprinted in Kiev, 1978; there is no pagination; the page is the verso side of the folio with signature "Бд"):
It is essential that Smotricky has used the same supralinear element not only in exclamatory omega, but also in plural form of certain pronouns (iаже, иже), as well as in some other words (not shown on the above-given image); also, he used here regular omega instead of broad one.
The following image (folio 17 v. of the book "Страсти Христовы", Moscow, 1913) demonstrates that it was sometimes possible to use regular apostrof (smooth breathing + grave) instead of velikiy apostrof:
Note also that the image contains also "plain" broad omega.
There were editions where both forms of exclamatory omega coexist. See the following example from Menaion for the month of July, Moscow, 1629 (folios 134 v. and 135):
Now about propositions:
-- it is necessary to add CYRILLIC CAPITAL/SMALL LETTER BROAD OMEGA (without dicritical marks);
-- it is necessary to have possibility to represent broad omegas with velikiy apostrof, but there are several ways to do this:
(i) using code position of existing "omega with titlo" (but in this case it would be necessary both to update sample glyphs and to replace the name with something like CYRILLIC LETTER BROAD OMEGA WITH VELIKIY APOSTROF);
(ii) keeping "omega with titlo" as is and adding CYRILLIC CAPITAL/SMALL LETTER BROAD OMEGA WITH VELIKIY APOSTROF as a new pair of symbols;
(iii) adding COMBINING CYRILLIC VELIKIY APOSTROF;
(iv) adding COMBINING CYRILLIC CIRCUMFLEX (or with traditional name: COMBINING CYRILLIC KAMORA), see Section 17 below;
(v) using combination of existing diacritical marks;
(vi) combining two or more of above-listed methods.
Here the word "книжникъ" has circumflex, "и" has smooth breathing, and "фарiсей" has breve.
And concerning the shape of representative glyphs: they must be clearly distinguishable from both Ъ and Ь, even if small and not very clear fonts used. Your variant is very bad from this point of view. Instead, I may propose something like the following:
(Sample printout of 1709; image taken from p. 43 of above-mentioned book of А. Шицгал.) Magnified fragments from that image:
Basing on these shapes, I may propose the following forms of omega, omega with titlo and ot:
If this shape would not for some reason be acceptable, the stylization for old Cyrillic script must be made in another way than in existing representative glyphs. I may propose the following:
Compare also with the proposed shape of "yn" (Section 2).
