In memoriam: Andrew West
We note with great sadness the unexpected passing of Andrew West, a consummate scholar whose careful work has left a lasting imprint on the encoding of many characters and scripts in the Unicode Standard and ISO/IEC 10646.
Andrew was instrumental in the success of several script proposals supported by SEI, including Tangut and Khitan Small Script (co-authored with Michael Everson and Viacheslav Zaytsev). He participated in SEI-supported meetings with experts from China on these and other scripts, including Shuishu and Naxi Dongba. Over many years, he collaborated closely with Michael Everson, Viacheslav (Slava) Zaytsev, and others in the script encoding community.
Andrew also authored proposals for the Phags-pa and Marchen scripts and contributed detailed comments on characters in Tibetan, Latin, CJK, and other script blocks, as well as on several emoji proposals—including those for the dodo and the mammoth. He shared his deep knowledge generously, offering insights on the Bon/Zhang Zhung writing systems that laid the groundwork for introductory proposals for Pungchen, Punchung, Marchung, and Brusha.
Andrew’s exacting attention to detail and dedication to accuracy have left an indelible mark on the Unicode and ISO/IEC 10646 standards. His contributions will continue to benefit scholars, students, and communities who use these scripts for generations to come.
