{{Short description|British sinologist (1960–2025)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=February 2020}} {{EngvarB|date=February 2020}} {{Infobox academic | name = Andrew West | image = Andrew-west-20131211.jpg | image_size = | alt = Headshot of Andew West at Cloud Platform, in front of a monument with Tangut script. He then was a middle-aged, white man with short, grey hair, wearing a large blue jacket. | caption = West in 2013 | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name = Andrew Christopher West | birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1960|03|31}} | birth_place = Dunfermline, Scotland | death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|2025|07|10|1960|03|31}} | death_place = | website = {{Official URL}} | education = {{ubl | School of Oriental and African Studies (B.A.) | Princeton University (Ph.D.) }} | alma_mater = | thesis_title = Quest of the Urtext: The Textual Archaeology of 'The Three Kingdoms' | thesis_url = | thesis_year = 1993 | school_tradition = | doctoral_advisor = Andrew H. Plaks | academic_advisors = | era = | discipline = Sinology | workplaces = Yale University | module = {{Infobox Chinese|child=yes | c = 魏安 | p = Wèi Ān | mi = {{IPAc-cmn|wei|4|-|an|1}} }} }}

'''Andrew Christopher West''' ({{zh|c=魏安|p=Wèi Ān}}; 31 March 1960 – 10 July 2025) was a British sinologist, linguist and script developer.

==Early life and education== West was born in Dunfermline, Scotland to naval officer Dennis West and Shelagh Gardiner. He had two older siblings and one younger. West attended Bishop Vesey's Grammar School in Sutton Coldfield, England. He began his studies at the University of Leicester but withdrew after the first year.<ref>{{cite news |last=Bickers |first=Robert |title=Andy West obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/08/andy-west-obituary |access-date=8 October 2025 |publisher=The Guardian |date=8 October 2025}}</ref> He later graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Far East studies from SOAS University of London in 1988, a Master of Arts (MA) and PhD from Princeton University, and a Master of Science (MSc) in Software Engineering from the University of Westminster.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2063-7389|title=Andrew West (0000-0002-2063-7389)|work=ORCID|accessdate=21 November 2025}}</ref>

==Career== West's first works concerned Chinese novels of the Ming and Qing dynasties. His study of ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'' used a new approach to analyse the relationship among the various versions, extrapolating the original text of that novel.<ref>Kimberly Ann Besio and Constantine Tung, ''Three Kingdoms and Chinese Culture'' (SUNY Press, 2007) p.163</ref><ref>Charles Horner, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=TR6svTcMQVoC&pg=PA94 Rising China and its Postmodern Fate]'' (University of Georgia Press, 2009) pp.94–95</ref>

West compiled a catalogue for the Chinese-language library of the English missionary Robert Morrison containing 893 books representing in total some 10,000{{nbsp}}string-bound fascicules.<ref>Beatrice S. Bartlett, Review in ''China Review International'' vol.6 no.2 (Fall 1999) pp.553–554</ref><ref>T. H. Barrett, Review in ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' vol.62 Issue 2 (1999)</ref>

His subsequent work was in the minority languages of China, especially Khitan, Manchu, and Mongolian. He proposed an encoding scheme for the 'Phags-pa script,<ref>{{Cite web |last=West |first=Andrew |date=2003-09-18 |title=Proposal to encode the Phags-pa script |url=http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2622.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221008022316/http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2622.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-08 |access-date=2025-07-18}}</ref> which was subsequently included in Unicode version 5.0.

West also worked to encode gaming symbols and phonetic characters to the UCS, and worked on encodings for Tangut and Jurchen.

===Software=== West was the developer of a number of software products and fonts for Microsoft Windows, including BabelPad and BabelMap.

BabelPad is a Unicode text editor with various tools for entering characters and performing text conversions such as normalization and Unicode casing.<ref>Jukka K. Korpela, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=lxndiWaFMvMC&pg=PA114 Unicode Explained]'' (O'Reilly, 2006) pp.114–115</ref> BabelPad also supports a wide range of encodings, and has input methods for entering Chinese, Mongolian, Manchu, Tibetan, Uyghur and Yi text, as well as for entering individual Unicode characters by their hexadecimal code point value.<ref>Ken Lunde, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=SA92uQqTB-AC&pg=PA645 CJKV Information Processing]'' (O'Reilly, 2008) p.645</ref>

BabelMap is a Unicode character map application that supports all Unicode blocks and characters, and includes various utilities such as pinyin and radical lookup tools for entering Chinese characters.<ref>Yannis Haralambous and P. Scott Horne, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=qrElYgVLDwYC&pg=PA161 Fonts & Encodings]'' (O'Reilly, 2007) pp.161–163</ref>

==Death== West died from a heart attack on 10 July 2025, aged 65.<ref>{{cite web |author1=Family of Andrew West |title=It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that we, the family of Andrew West, confirm his peaceful passing on 10th July 2025. The BabelStone legacy will be continued by colleagues and friends. |url=https://bsky.app/profile/babelstone.co.uk/post/3lv6ewuw3yc2x |website=Bluesky |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250730135637/https://bsky.app/profile/babelstone.co.uk/post/3lv6ewuw3yc2x |archive-date=2025-07-30 |date=30 July 2025 |url-status=live}}</ref>

== Works == * 1996. ''Sānguó yǎnyì bǎnběn kǎo'' 三國演義版本考 [A study of the editions of ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'']. Shanghai: Shanghai Classics Publishing House. {{ISBN|7-5325-2023-4}} * 1998. [https://digital.soas.ac.uk/LOAA003467/ ''Catalogue of the Morrison Collection of Chinese Books''] (馬禮遜藏書書目). London: SOAS. {{ISBN|0-7286-0292-X}} * 2012. "Musical Notation for Flute in Tangut Manuscripts". In Irina Fedorovna Popova (ed.), ''Тангуты в Центральной Азии: сборник статей в честь 80-летия проф. Е.И.Кычанова'' [Tanguts in Central Asia: a collection of articles marking the 80th anniversary of Prof. E. I. Kychanov] pp.&nbsp;443–453. Moscow: Oriental Literature. {{ISBN|978-5-02-036505-6}} *2016. [http://www.evertype.com/books/ctt1-clauson.html ''Gerard Clauson's Skeleton Tangut (Hsi Hsia) Dictionary: A facsimile edition'']. With an introduction by Imre Galambos. With Editorial notes and an Index by Andrew West. Prepared for publication by Michael Everson. Portlaoise: Evertype. {{ISBN|978-1-78201-167-5}}.

== See also == * List of Wikipedia people

== References == {{reflist}}

== External links == {{Sister project auto}} * {{Official website}}

{{Portal bar|Biography|China|Linguistics|Software|United Kingdom}} {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:West, Andrew}} Category:1960 births Category:2025 deaths Category:Academics of SOAS University of London Category:Alumni of SOAS University of London Category:Alumni of the University of Westminster Category:British sinologists Category:People educated at Bishop Vesey's Grammar School Category:People from Dunfermline Category:People involved with Unicode Category:Princeton University alumni Category:Tangutologists Category:Wikipedia people Category:Yale University faculty