As your code reveals, you're not actually dealing with UTF-16 data and it appears you would benefit from reading perluniintro. Specifically, take a look at how to include utf8 data in your perl program (use utf8, see utf8), how to include Unicode characters for code points above 0xFF ($string = "\x{1ECB}" is the 'i' with a dot, see: Creating Unicode) and changing the encoding of a filehandle (binmode(OUT,':utf8'), see Unicode I/O).

Unicode is a difficult animal to tackle. I've been dealing with it for the last couple of years and I'm just now feeling like I have a handle on it. I've found the chapter on Unicode in the second edition of Advanced Perl Programming very helpful.

-- Brian