The Unicode Blog

Highlights from UTC Meeting #184

2025-07-30T18:41:00.000-07:00

The Unicode Technical Committee (UTC) meeting #184 was held last week, July 22 – 24, in Redmond, Washington, hosted by Microsoft. Here are some highlights.

Finalizing Unicode 17.0

The top priority was to finalize technical decisions for Unicode 17.0 in preparation for a September 9 release. Beta feedback and a small number of new proposals were considered, and various decisions affecting Unicode 17.0 were taken.

The most significant change from the Unicode 17.0 Beta is the removal of 44 characters, based on feedback requesting more time to review these characters and the associated proposals:

09FF BENGALI LETTER SANSKRIT BA
0B53 ORIYA SIGN DOT ABOVE
0B54 ORIYA SIGN DOUBLE DOT ABOVE
1FADD APPLE CORE
40 Chisoi script characters and the Chisoi block at 16D80..16DAF

These characters have been postponed to Unicode 18.0. With this change, the total number of new characters for Unicode 17.0 will be 4,803, including CJK Extension J and four new scripts.

Glyph changes were also approved for 21 characters, all of which were encoded in earlier versions.

Certain character property changes were also approved. These include a change to the Word_Break property for 00B8 CEDILLA to accommodate orthographic usage for SENĆOŦEN, an indigenous language spoken in Western Canada. In relation to identifiers and security, the seven scripts added in Unicode 16.0 (Garay, Gurung Khema, Kirat Rai, Ol Onal, Sunuwar, Todhri, and Tulu-Tigalari) will be classified in UAX #31 as Excluded Scripts (Table 4), which means that these will not be included in the General Security Profile for secure identifiers.

First characters approved for Unicode 18.0

The tentative plan for new characters to be added in the next Unicode version is usually decided at the fall UTC meeting. The first approvals for Unicode 18.0, however, were decided last week at UTC #184. These include the 44 characters postponed from Unicode 17.0, mentioned above, as well as u+20CE UAE DIRHAM SIGN and 16 geometric symbols used in the manuscripts of the 17th-century polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.

As typically happens at each UTC meeting, several code points were provisionally assigned for other new characters that will be candidates for future versions.

For characters approved for 18 or provisionally assigned for future versions, see https://www.unicode.org/alloc/Pipeline.html#future.

Text Terminal Working Group progress

A temporary working group was created at UTC #175 to work on improved support for Unicode text in text-only terminal environments, particularly for scripts requiring advanced layout. Due to changes in availability of key participants early on, progress was hindered, but the working group is now meeting regularly.

To scope the project, they will prioritize scripts classified in UAX #31 as Recommended. These include a number of scripts for which examples of fixed-width text have not been readily available, and the working group would welcome contributions from anyone with knowledge of prior art for fixed-width Indic text.

For complete details from UTC #184, see the draft minutes.

About the Unicode Standard

The world relies on digital communications. The Unicode Standard is one of the building blocks for global digital communications, providing the encoding for more than 155,000 characters used by thousands of languages and scripts throughout the world.

Each character—letter, diacritic, symbol, emoji, etc.—is represented by a unique numeric code, and has defined properties data that define how characters behave in several text processing algorithms.

With this combination, The Unicode Standard provides the foundation for implementations to support the world's writing systems, enabling billions of people across the globe to seamlessly communicate with one another across platforms and devices. The Standard is also the foundation for the suite of code, libraries, data, and products that the Unicode Consortium delivers for robust language support.

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🥳 Say Hello to the New Emoji Coming in Unicode 17.0 This Fall! ✨

2025-07-16T09:51:00.000-07:00

From 🥹 to 🦖 to 🎸, emoji have become the world's favorite way to say anything—without saying a word. Whether you're texting your best friend, posting on social media, or cheering someone up with a perfectly-timed 😭, emoji help us connect across languages, cultures, and continents.

But have you ever wondered how a new emoji makes its way to your keyboard?

That’s where the Unicode Consortium comes in. We're the nonprofit behind the Unicode Standard—the foundation that, in short, ensures your text (and emoji!) work across all your devices, around the world. Every year, new characters including emoji are added to the Unicode Standard and after a lot of paperwork are added to your device of choice :)

And today, on World Emoji Day, we’re thrilled to share some of the new emoji that will debut as part of the Unicode 17.0 release. Say hello to…

Trombone
Treasure Chest
Distorted Face
Hairy Creature
Fight Cloud
Apple Core
Orca
Ballet Dancer
Landslide

These new emoji have long standing symbolic meanings, are visually distinctive, and contain multitudes of expression. [Update - Additional characters in the repertoire of an upcoming release are subject to final approval by the Unicode Technical Committee.]

🎨 Got the next great emoji idea?

You can submit an emoji proposal by following our guidelines and tips. And if you want to support the future of digital communication, check out our Adopt a Character program. It’s a fun way to sponsor your favorite emoji, letter, or symbol while helping fund our mission to preserve and promote global languages in the digital age.

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Registration for Unicode Technology Workshop 2025 is now open!

2025-06-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

Join us at Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus in Mountain View, California for one, two, or all three days of community building around the Unicode technology that makes software work for billions of people.

🗓️ November 11 - Tutorial Day on Unicode Technologies
🗓️ November 12-13 - Unicode Technology Workshop 2025

Expect workshops, seminars, free-form discussions, and lightning talks centered around i18n libraries, locale data frameworks, globalization tooling, localization pipelines, input methods, and text rendering. Network with the developers and users to help shape the future of Unicode technology.

You will come away with deeper knowledge on how to solve tough problems in the i18n and l10n space and how to engineer products that work better for global users. To encourage maximum collaboration amongst the attendees, this is an in-person-only event.

💲Discounts

An early bird registration code for a discounted price on your registration is available. The code is: UTW2025Early. ⏳

Special rates are available to current Unicode members, students, and academics. Students and academics also receive one year of Unicode individual membership with their registration. The early bird discount code is not required for students or academics.

Learn more and complete your registration here or use the QR code below.

🫶 Sponsorship Opportunities

Sponsorship opportunities are available at various levels. Sponsorship benefits include complimentary registrations, opportunities to lead a session or workshop, recognition on the event website, program and event materials, visibility on social media, and much more. Specific offerings vary by sponsorship level.

If you want to demonstrate your industry leadership, enhance your brand, share your knowledge, promote your products and services, and foster community building, contact events@unicode.org today to learn more. Sponsorship discounts are available to Unicode Full and Supporting Members.

📣 Call for Submissions is also open

Unicode is also accepting session proposals for workshops, seminars, case studies, and tutorials that center around:
- Unicode i18n libraries
- Locale data frameworks
- Globalization tooling
- Localization pipelines
- Input methods
- Character encoding
- Text rendering
…and more!

Tutorial topics might include: font design and Unicode properties, introduction to Software Internationalization (i18n), and how to best support bidirectional text.

Share your knowledge and experience with other Unicode users, and help us envision the future of Unicode technology. You will also leave with deeper knowledge on how to solve tough problems in the i18n and l10n space and how to engineer products that work better for global users. Program and product managers who work with engineering teams are also strongly encouraged to join and propose sessions.

Deadline for submissions is July 31, 2025 by 5:00PM PT. Proposals will be reviewed in July and session hosts will be notified late July.

🗓️ Mark Your Calendars for Key Dates!

July 31 - Call for Submissions Closes - All Proposals, including Tutorials, Due
August 18 - Program Committee Notifications Go Out
August 31 - Early Bird Registration for Tutorials and UTW 2025 Closes
September 1 - Regular Registration for Tutorials and UTW 2025 Opens

Please visit https://www.unicode.org/events/utw/2025/ for updates. If you have any questions, please contact us at UTW2025@unicode.org. We look forward to seeing you in November!

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ICU4X 2.0 released!

2025-05-29T13:36:00.000-07:00

At the intersection of human and computer languages, internationalization (i18n) continues to play a pivotal role in modern software. Evolving i18n libraries means better quality experiences, improved performance, and support for digitally disadvantaged languages.

ICU4X is Unicode's modern, lightweight, portable, and secure i18n library. Built from the ground up, its binary size and memory usage footprint is 50-90% smaller than ICU4C. It is memory-safe, written in Rust with interfaces into C++, JavaScript, and TypeScript — and Python, Dart, and Kotlin are in the pipeline. Mozilla Firefox, Google Pixel Watch, core Android, numerous Flutter apps, and more clients are already using ICU4X.

After 6 months of iterating on beta releases and a soft launch earlier this month, the ICU4X Technical Committee is happy to announce ICU4X 2.0. This release brings a new paradigm for locale objects, a rewritten DateTime component, overhauled C++/C/JS interfaces, the latest locale data, and much more.

Date, Time, and Time Zone Formatting

ICU4X 2.0 implements the new semantic datetime skeletons specification in UTS 35. An evolution from previous datetime APIs, the ICU4X DateTime component is designed from decades of experience understanding what developers need from datetime formatting.

With ICU4X 2.0, users pick a "field set" and fine-tune it with "options". There are a fixed number of field sets, which represent all valid combinations of fields.

Users of ICU and JavaScript are familiar with "classical" datetime skeletons and components bags, respectively. The following table illustrates the correlation with semantic datetime skeletons:

ICU Classical Skeleton	ECMA-402 Components Bag	ICU4X 2.0 Rust Code
yMMMd	{ year: "numeric", month: "abbreviated", day: "numeric" }	fieldsets::YMD::medium()
MdEjm	{ month: "numeric", day: "numeric", weekday: "short", hour: "numeric", minute: "numeric" }	fieldsets::MDE::short() .time_hm()
jmsV	{ hour: "numeric", minute: "numeric", second: "numeric", timeZoneName: "generic" }	fieldsets::T::hms() .zone(zone::GenericShort)

Semantic datetime skeletons, called "field sets with options" in ICU4X, have numerous advantages:

Easier to understand and harder to make mistakes. For example, a common error in ICU skeletons is to write an incorrect skeleton string such as "YMd" or "ymd" instead of the correct "yMd".
Enables new formatting options not possible with components bags or skeletons:

Year style: the era, such as "BCE", can be automatically inserted

Time precision: the minute can be hidden if it is zero

Prevents nonsensical combinations of fields and options. For example, the ICU4X API prevents "month with minute" (“December 10” for December 5 at 7:10).
Well-suited for data slicing, allowing for minimal data overhead. For example, apps won’t carry weekday names if they are formatting with only a year/month/day or time field set.

Locale Preferences

ICU4X 2.0 introduces Preferences objects, a new paradigm for locale and user preference resolution in component constructors.

The new structures enable richer, type-safe management of user preferences coming from different sources, including locales and other preferences objects. String-based locales are still supported as well.

Locale Identifier String	ICU4X 2.0 Rust Code*
en-US-u-hc-h23	let mut p = Preferences::from(LanguageIdentifier { language: language!("en"), region: region!("US"), ..Default::default() }) p.hour_cycle = HourCycle::H23;
zh-Hant-TW-u-ca-roc	let mut p = Preferences::from(LanguageIdentifier { language: language!("zh"), script: Some(script!("Hant")), region: Some(region!("TW")), ..Default::default() }) p.calendar_algorithm = CalendarAlgorithm::Roc;
ar-EG-u-nu-latn-fw-sun	let mut p = Preferences::from(LanguageIdentifier { language: language!("ar"), region: region!("EG"), ..Default::default() }) p.numbering_system = value!("latn").try_into().unwrap(); p.first_day = FirstDay::Sun;

* The type name "Preferences" is a placeholder for the formatter-specific preferences object, such as DecimalFormatterPreferences, a structured object containing all the pieces of a locale required for number formatting: information on the language, script, region, variant, and numbering system preference, but not irrelevant pieces like calendar system.

Cross Programming Language Improvements

The foreign function interface (FFI) has been overhauled with major ergonomic improvements. Key changes include:

Separate constructors in FFI for built-in compiled data and data from an explicit data provider, enabling better dead-code elimination for non-Rust clients.
C/C++

Namespacing: ICU4X types are exported in a namespace, allowing for including "icu4x::DateTimeFormatter" instead of "ICU4XDateTimeFormatter".
Smart pointers: ICU4X types are returned within std::unique_ptr instead of internally containing an allocation; allowing more flexible usage with other reference strategies.
Versioned ABI: structs that are #[non_exhaustive] in Rust (and methods that use them) are now versioned on both the ABI and in headers, allowing them to evolve safely in future versions

JavaScript

Enums: enum representation changed from strings to classes. Strings can still be used in the constructor
Structs: objects can now be used wherever structs (such as options bags) are required
Special methods: constructors, iterator, getters and setters are now exposed idiomatically
Documentation: typedoc-generated documentation is a lot more readable now (check it out)
ICU4X is now published as an NPM package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/icu

Other Cross-Cutting Changes

Additional changes you may encounter when upgrading from 1.5 to 2.0:

Many Rust types have gained separate owned and borrowed variants; for example, there are now both "Collator" and "CollatorBorrowed". The borrowed variant is slightly more efficient; it can be created statically from compiled data or derived from the owned variant.
Our internal data storage type has a more efficient binary representation (see the zerovec crate). This means that postcard data generated with ICU4X 1.5 will not work with 2.0.
The icu_locid and icu_locid_transform crates were re-organized into icu_locale and icu_locale_core. This means that icu_locid and icu_locid_transform will be forever at 1.5. If you currently depend directly on icu_locid or icu_locid_transform, you need to switch to icu_locale or icu_locale_core.
The icu_calendar crate now focuses only on calendrical calculations, and a new crate, icu_time, contains pieces from icu_calendar and icu_timezone. The icu_timezone crate will be forever at 1.5. If you currently depend directly on icu_timezone, you need to switch to icu_time.
The icu_datagen crate was split into several sub-crates. If you currently depend directly on icu_datagen, you need to switch to icu_provider_source, icu_provider_export, and/or the icu4x-datagen binary crate.
Performance improvements in multiple components. For example, the normalizer got a data rearrangement that benefits non-NFD normalizations, and the collator now has an identical prefix optimization.
Input types for formatters are now re-exported from the formatter crate to reduce the number of explicit Cargo.toml dependencies.
All crates are updated to the latest CLDR (47) and Unicode (16) versions.

Get started with ICU4X 2.0

ICU4X's new website, icu4x.unicode.org, now hosts tutorials, documentation, and more. The website reflects the current release, with previous releases also available.

Check out our quickstart tutorial, interactive demo, or C++, TypeScript, and (experimental) Dart documentation.

As before, the Rust crate is available at crates.io, with documentation at docs.rs.

Please post any questions via GitHub Discussions.

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Unicode 17.0 Beta Review Open

2025-05-20T13:05:00.000-07:00

The beta review period for Unicode® 17.0 has started and is open until July 1, 2025.

The beta is intended primarily for review of character property data and changes to algorithm specifications (Unicode Standard Annexes and certain Unicode Technical Standards that are synchronized with the Unicode Standard). Also, a complete draft of the core specification text is available for review during the beta period.

At this phase of a release, the character repertoire is considered stable. No new characters will be added. Characters could still be removed, and character names or code points could be changed, but such changes would require strong justification.

For this release, 4,847 new characters have been added, bringing the total number of encoded characters in Unicode 17.0 to 159,845. The largest set of added characters is in the new CJK Unified Ideographs Extension J block, with 4,298 new CJK unified ideographs, which increases the number of CJK unified ideographs to over 100,000. The new additions also include characters for the following five new scripts:

Beria Erfe is a modern-use script used in central Africa.
Chisoi is a modern-use script used in northeast India.
Tolong Siki is a modern-use script used in northeast India.
Tai Yo is the traditional script of Tai Yo communities in northern Vietnam.
Sidetic is an historic script used in ancient Anatolia.

In addition to new CJK unified ideographs, nearly 2,500 already-encoded CJK ideographs were horizontally extended, adding source references and glyphs reflecting use of those ideographs in China and Korea.

Another notable character addition is the SAUDI RIYAL SIGN, recently created by the Saudi Central Bank for its riyal currency.

See The Pipeline and the delta code charts for details on all of the new characters.

In addition to new characters, there are some significant character property and algorithm changes, including the following:

A proposed update to UAX #14, Unicode Line Breaking Algorithm, introduces a new Line_Break property value and associated rule changes.
In a proposed update to UTS #39, Unicode Security Mechanisms, a large number of Identifier_Type property value changes are made. These values are used for defining a default recommended set of characters for identifiers used in secure contexts.

Also note that locations of data files for synchronized UTSes have been changed. See the Unicode 17.0 Beta landing page for other noteworthy property and algorithm changes. For full details regarding the Beta, see Public Review Issue #526. Feedback should be reported under PRI #526 using the Unicode Contact Form by July 1, 2025.

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Or maybe something to treat yourself?
🕉️💗🏎️🐨🔥🚀爱₿♜🍀

Adopt a character or emoji to give it the attention it deserves, while also supporting Unicode’s mission to ensure everyone can communicate in their own languages across all devices.

Each adoption includes a digital badge and certificate that you can proudly display!

Have fun and support a good cause

You can also donate funds or gift stock

Unicode Technology Workshop 2025 — Call for Submissions Now Open!

2025-05-06T13:21:00.000-07:00

📣 Call for Submissions Now Open!

Unicode is pleased to announce that session proposals for UTW 2025 are now being accepted!

We are seeking proposals for workshops, seminars, case studies, and tutorials that center around:

Unicode i18n libraries
Locale data frameworks
Globalization tooling
Localization pipelines
Input methods
Character encoding
Text rendering …and more!

Tutorial topics might include: font design and Unicode properties, introduction to Software Internationalization (i18n), and how to best support Bidirectional text.

Come connect with other Unicode users, share your knowledge and experience, and help us envision the future of Unicode technology. You will come away with deeper knowledge on how to solve tough problems in the i18n and l10n space and how to engineer products that work better for global users. Program and product managers who work with engineering teams are also strongly encouraged to join and propose sessions.

Deadline for submissions is July 15, 2025 by 5:00PM PT. Proposals will be reviewed in July and session hosts will be notified late July.

‼️Note: To encourage maximum collaboration amongst the attendees, this is an in-person-only event.

🗓️ Mark Your Calendars for Key Dates!

By June 11 - Early Bird Registration for Tutorials and UTW 2025 Opens

July 15 - Call for Submissions Closes - All Proposals, including Tutorials, Due

July 31 - Program Committee Notifications Go Out

August 31 - Early Bird Registration for Tutorials and UTW 2025 Closes

September 1 - Regular Registration for Tutorials and UTW 2025 Opens

See you there!

🫶 Sponsorship Opportunities

If you want to demonstrate your industry leadership, enhance your brand, share your knowledge, promote your products and services, and foster community building, contact events@unicode.org today to learn more. Sponsorship discounts are available to Unicode Full and Supporting Members.

If you have any questions, please contact us at UTW2025@unicode.org

Adopt a Character and Support Unicode’s Mission

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🕉️💗🏎️🐨🔥🚀爱₿♜🍀

Adopt a character or emoji to give it the attention it deserves, while also supporting Unicode’s mission to ensure everyone can communicate in their own languages across all devices.

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Unicode CLDR Version 48: Submission Open

2025-05-05T14:01:00.000-07:00

The Unicode CLDR Survey Tool is open for submission for version 48. CLDR provides key building blocks for software to support the world's languages (dates, times, numbers, sort-order, etc.). All major browsers and all modern mobile phones use CLDR for language support. (See Who uses CLDR?)

Via the online Survey Tool, contributors supply data for their languages — data that is widely used to support much of the world’s software. This data is also a factor in determining which languages are supported on mobile phones and computer operating systems.

Version 48 is focusing on:

Unicode 17 additions: new emoji, script names, …
Changes to the root and/or English names of many exemplar cities and some metazones
Additional number and date formats:
- New “relative” variant for date-time combining pattern
- Two new currency formats
- Rational number formats
- New ‘Year-First’ calendar formatting for year-month-day order (Gregorian).
Units:
- New units for languages in modern coverage
- Reworking certain concentration units
New Languages available for submission in Survey Tool:
- Buryat (bua)
- Coptic (cop)
- Haitian Creole (ht)
- Kazakh (Latin) (kk-Latn)
- Laz (lzz)
- Luri Bakhtiari (bqi)
- Nselxcin (Okanagan) (oka)
- Pāli (pi)
- Piedmontese (pms)
- Q’eqchi’ (kek)
- Samogitian (sgs)
- Sunuwar (suz)
- Chinese (Latin) (zh-Latn)

Submission of new data opened recently and is slated to finish on June 11. The new data then enters a vetting phase, where contributors work out which of the supplied data for each field is best. That vetting phase is slated to finish on June 30. A public alpha makes the draft data available in early August, and the final release targets mid-October.

Each new locale starts with a small set of Core Data, such as a list of characters used in the language. Submitters of those locales need to bring the coverage up to Basic level (very basic basic dates, times, numbers, and endonyms) during the next submission cycle.

Once a language reaches Basic coverage, it has the minimum support for use in language selection, such as on mobile devices. In the next submission cycle, the name for that language is also added for translation for all languages at Modern coverage.

If you would like to contribute missing data for your language, see Survey Tool Accounts. For more information on contributing to CLDR, see the CLDR Information Hub.

Adopt a Character and Support Unicode’s Mission

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Adopt a character or emoji to give it the attention it deserves, while also supporting Unicode’s mission to ensure everyone can communicate in their own languages across all devices.

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Highlights from UTC #183

2025-05-05T13:26:00.000-07:00

By Peter Constable, Chair of UTC

Unicode Technical Committee (UTC) meeting #183 was held April 22 – 24. Thanks to member company Microsoft for hosting at its Mountain View, CA campus. Here are some highlights.

Unicode 17.0 Beta

Unicode 17.0 is scheduled for release in September of this year. At UTC #183, technical decisions were taken for updates to be reflected in the Beta release, which will be available for public review later this month.

The most significant changes affecting Unicode 17.0 are encoding of 14 additional characters:

A new currency symbol, SAUDI RIYAL SIGN, was proposed by the Saudi Central Bank and will be added to Unicode 17.0. This has been assigned to code point U+20C1.

Note: We know that many vendors will want to implement support for this quickly. Keep in mind that, while it's unlikely that the code point will change, this isn't completely guaranteed until Unicode 17.0 is finalized at the next UTC meeting, in July.
For more background, see a recent Unicode Blog article, Support for the New Saudi Riyal Currency Symbol.

Thirteen new CJK unified ideographs will be added, twelve of which are needed for use in China. These were reviewed by experts in the Ideographic Research Group (IRG—a working group within ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC2), who recommended immediate encoding. For more information, see Sections 25 and 27 of the CJK & Unihan Working Group recommendations (L2/25-090).

Three characters that were to be newly-added have been removed. The Unicode 17.0 Alpha included the addition of Sidetic script, with 29 characters. (Sidetic is an historic script used in ancient Anatolia.) Based on expert feedback during the Alpha review, three of the characters were deemed not ready for encoding, and so will be removed from Unicode 17.0. Hence, the Beta will include only 26 Sidetic characters.

With these repertoire changes, Unicode 17.0 Beta will include 4,847 new characters.

There were other notable changes related to CJK Unified Ideographs. Thanks to ongoing research by IRG experts, a number of corrections will be made affecting already-encoded ideographs, including changes to the region-specific glyphs shown in the code charts and to source references (the details that map CJK Unified Ideographs to the specific ideograph forms used in different regions). One significant change being made is the horizontal extension of 2,145 existing CJK Unified Ideographs with the addition of glyphs and source data for those characters reflecting use in China. For details, see section 28 of L2/25-090.

Operational criteria for security-related classification of characters

One Unicode specification, UTS 39, Unicode Security Mechanisms, provides guidance on Unicode characters that should or should not be used in identifier systems where security is an issue, such as Internet domain names. It defines a General Security Profile for identifiers, which gives all Unicode characters a status of allowed or restricted. This is based on a classification of characters by a character property, Identifier_Type.

Up to now, there has been a basic description of the different Identifier_Type values, but not detailed operational criteria for assigning characters to the various types. UTC reviewed a proposal for such operational criteria—see L2/25-069, Factors used in determining the Identifier_Type of characters. These criteria were informed by work done in ICANN in defining rules used for determining permitted DNS and second-level domain name labels. UTC approved these criteria to be incorporated into UTS #39 and used for this purpose going forward.

Related to this, the Identifier_Type classifications of over 1000 characters will be revised in Unicode 17.0, in line with these criteria. (Similar changes were made during UTC #182 for a large number of CJK Unified Ideographs.)

New Unicode Technical Standards in development

When I sent email mentioning highlights from UTC #182, I mentioned two technical documents in early stages of development that were available for public review:

PRI #509, Proposed Draft UTS #58, Unicode Link Detection and Serialization
PRI #510, Proposed Draft UTR #59, East Asian Spacing

UTC #183 advanced both of these from Proposed Draft to Draft status.

Also, the specification for East Asian spacing will be changed from a Unicode Technical Report (UTR) to a Unicode Technical Standard (UTS). Technical reports are used to provide technical information, which could include potential algorithms that could be useful for implementations. But they are not used as a basis for specifying data or algorithms where interoperability between implementations is required. As pointed out in document L2/25-138, this new Unicode technical document will be referenced by CSS specifications for the text-autospace property which is in development and being implemented in browsers. Hence, it is appropriate for this Unicode document to be designated as a UTS.

In addition, UTC reviewed a proposal for another UTS and authorized its development: Proposed Draft UTS #61, Unicode Set Notation. Unicode specs for properties and algorithms often need to refer to sets of code points or strings using property assignments. Certain conventions have been used in UTC specs as well as in certain Unicode-provided tools and implementations, including the Unicode Utilities and ICU, and in the Unicode CLDR LDML spec. However, the conventions used in these various contexts have not been mutually consistent and interoperable. The proposed new UTS is a first step toward convergence of the conventions across these contexts. The proposed draft UTS has been posted for public review, and UTC invites feedback on it:

PRI #523, Proposed Draft UTS #61, Unicode Set Notation

Note: some working group reports are referred to for background details, but be sure to check the minutes for definitive outcomes, which sometimes differ from what working groups recommended. For complete details, see the draft UTC #183 minutes.

Internationalization & Unicode Technologies: Learn the Concepts, Apply the Tools. @LocWorld Malmö

2025-05-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce that the Unicode Consortium will be onsite at LocWorld53 from June 3-5, 2025 in Malmö, Sweden. LocWorld is a premier conference for localization professionals, networking, and industry innovation. We hope to see you there!

On June 3rd, Unicode will offer two training sessions designed specifically for localization specialists. These sessions provide a comprehensive introduction to software internationalization (i18n) and Unicode technologies.

While each session stands independently, they are also complementary. Session 1 offers a beginner-friendly overview, while Session 2 dives deeper into practical implementation. Whether you're new to i18n or looking to refine your skills, these sessions will equip you with the knowledge and tools to collaborate effectively with developers and create globally accessible software.

June 3rd - Global Toolbox Sessions Highlights

Discount available for attendees from Unicode Organizational Members. More details below.

Registration for LocWorld Malmö is not required to attend a Global Toolbox session.

Session 1

A Friendly Introduction to Software Internationalization (i18n) and Unicode Technologies

Ideal for: Localization Program & Project Managers (15-40 attendees)

Join us for an engaging session that simplifies the complex world of software internationalization (i18n) and Unicode technologies. This session is tailored for non-technical localization specialists who want to bridge the gap between their expertise and the needs of software development teams. By the end, you’ll feel empowered to contribute to the creation of globally accessible, easily localizable applications and services.

Why You Should Attend

Whether you’re new to i18n or looking to deepen your understanding, this session will demystify the topic and leave you equipped to champion internationalization in your organization. Plus, you'll get practical tips and insights straight from a Spotify expert!

Ready to expand your horizons? Reserve your spot today and take the first step toward mastering software i18n!

Session 2

Practical Software Internationalization (i18n) with Unicode Technologies

Ideal for: Localization Program & Project Managers (15-40 attendees)

Take your internationalization (i18n) knowledge to the next level with this practical, hands-on session focused on applying Unicode i18n technologies. Whether you’re continuing from Session 1 or joining as a standalone attendee, this session is perfect for localization specialists looking to guide developers in implementing effective i18n solutions.

Why You Should Attend

Localization is about more than just translating words—it’s about creating seamless, culturally relevant experiences. This session breaks down the practical side of i18n and gives you the tools to turn concepts into action. Whether you're tackling a global project or simply want to enhance your skill set, this session equips you with the knowledge to make an impact.

Ready to get practical? Sign up today and learn how to bring software i18n to life with confidence!

Pricing and Member Discounts

Attendees from Unicode Organization Members are being offered a discount for attending - €250 for each session, €450 for both (for a single attendee). The cost for Non-Members will be €300 for each session, €550 for both (for a single attendee). This discount is also available to Unicode individual members along with regular contributors and volunteers of the Unicode Technical Committees and Working Groups. Please contact jill@localizationinstitute.com from your company email address for your discount code, if eligible. Registration to attend LocWorld is not required.

About Our Session Host: Joel Sahleen

Joel Sahleen most recently led the Internationalization Engineering team at Spotify, and is the volunteer lead for the Unicode Education Initiative. Trained as a classical Chinese linguist and a cross-cultural ethical theorist, for the last decade and a half, he has been working in the field of software internationalization and localization as an engineer, an architect, a team lead and a manager. A regular speaker at both internationalization and localization conferences, he is passionate about the technical, practical, and ethical aspects of developing software for a global audience.

If you have any questions, please contact us at events@unicode.org.

Call for Submissions Open! -- So You Have an Idea for an Emoji? That’s Amazing!

2025-04-27T12:35:00.000-07:00

First of all—congratulations on even thinking about contributing a new emoji to the world! The fact that you're curious about the Unicode emoji proposal process means you're already part of a fun, creative, and meaningful journey.

The Unicode Consortium is the organization that makes sure emojis work across all devices and platforms. Every year, the Emoji Standards & Research Working Group (ESR) reviews proposals from people just like you—yes, anyone can submit an emoji idea! Whether it’s a symbol that represents your culture, a concept you feel is missing, or something universally relatable, the process is open and inclusive.

A strong proposal includes data to support the emoji’s relevance (like search trends and usage patterns), a compelling explanation of its significance, and mockups showing how it might look. It’s not just about a cool idea—it’s about making a case for why this emoji will resonate with people around the world.

Jennifer Daniel, Chair of the ESR, highlights both the do’s and dont’s of this process with wit and insight, reminding us that while emoji are fun, their selection is thoughtful and rigorous. The emoji you propose today could be something people everywhere use in a few years to laugh, cry, or express love—one tiny symbol at a time.

Emoji proposals are being accepted until 2025-07-31. Please review the Guidelines for submitting Unicode® Emoji Proposals and submit your proposals here.

Adopt a Character and Support Unicode’s Mission

Looking to give that special someone a special something?
Or maybe something to treat yourself?
🕉️💗🏎️🐨🔥🚀爱₿♜🍀

Adopt a character or emoji to give it the attention it deserves, while also supporting Unicode’s mission to ensure everyone can communicate in their own languages across all devices.

Each adoption includes a digital badge and certificate that you can proudly display!

Have fun and support a good cause

You can also donate funds or gift stock

ICU 77 Now Available!

2025-03-13T16:19:00.000-07:00

Unicode® ICU 77 has just been released. ICU is the premier library for software internationalization, used by a wide array of companies and organizations to support the world's languages, implementing both the latest version of the Unicode Standard and of the Unicode locale data (CLDR).

ICU 77 updates to CLDR 47 (beta blog) locale data with new locales, and various additions and corrections.

ICU 77 is mostly focused on bug fixes, segmentation conformance, and other refinements.

The Java technology preview implementation of the CLDR MessageFormat 2.0 specification has been updated to incorporate the CLDR 46.1 spec plus most but not all of the CLDR 47 changes.

The C++ technology preview implementation of MessageFormat 2.0 is not yet quite up to date with CLDR 46.1.

Please note that for ICU 78 (2025-oct) we are planning to (a) upgrade from Java 8 to Java 11, and (b) remove the ICU4J Locale Service Provider. See the ICU 77 page for details.

2025-03-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

Unicode CLDR 47 Release: MessageFormat 2.0 Stable

CLDR 47 is now available and has been integrated into version 77 of ICU. The CLDR 47 release page has information on accessing the data, reviewing charts of the changes, and — importantly — Migration issues including upcoming changes planned in CLDR 48.

The Unicode CLDR project provides key building blocks for software to support the world's languages (dates, times, numbers, sort-order, etc.). For example, all major browsers and all modern mobile phones use CLDR for language support. (See Who uses CLDR?)

Key changes in CLDR 47

CLDR 47 did not have a Survey Tool submission phase, and focused on tooling and just a few functional areas. The biggest change is that the MessageFormat 2.0 specification has advanced from Final Candidate to Stable. This means that the stability guarantees are in place and implementations can finalize their APIs.

MessageFormat 2.0 Stable

Software needs to construct messages that incorporate various pieces of information. The complexities of the world's languages make this challenging. MessageFormat 2.0 enables developers and translators to create natural-sounding user interfaces that can appear in any language and support the needs of various cultures.

The new MessageFormat defines the data model, syntax, processing, and conformance requirements for the next generation of dynamic messages. It is intended for adoption by programming languages, software libraries, and software localization tooling. It enables the integration of internationalization APIs (such as date or number formats) and grammatical matching (such as plurals or genders). It is extensible, allowing software developers to create formatting or message selection logic that add on to the core capabilities. Its data model provides the means of representing existing syntaxes, thus enabling gradual adoption by users of older formatting systems.

Tech Preview implementations are available in C++, Java, and JavaScript:

ICU4J, Java: com.ibm.icu.message2, part of ICU 76, is a tech preview implementation of the MessageFormat 2.0, together with a formatting API. See the ICU User Guide for examples and a quickstart guide, and Trying MF 2.0 Final Candidate to try a “Hello World”.
ICU4C, C++: icu::message2::MessageFormatter, part of ICU 76, is a tech preview implementation of MessageFormat 2.0, together with a formatting API. See the ICU User Guide for examples and a quickstart guide, and Trying MF 2.0 Final Candidate to try a “Hello World”.
Javascript: messageformat 4.0 provides a formatter and conversion tools for the MessageFormat 2 syntax, together with a polyfill of the runtime API proposed for ECMA-402.

(Because of the timing, these implement a slightly earlier version of the spec, but can be used for initial evaluation, testing, and experimentation.)

Tooling changes

Many tooling changes are difficult to accommodate in a data-submission release, including performance work and UI improvements. The changes in CLDR 47 provide faster turn-around for linguists and higher data quality. They are targeted at the CLDR 48 submission period, starting in April 2025.

For more information

See the CLDR 47 release page, which has information on accessing the data, reviewing charts of the changes, and — importantly — Migration issues.

Support for the New Saudi Riyal Currency Symbol

2025-03-13T11:04:00.000-07:00

In February of this year, the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) announced the creation of a new symbol to represent the Saudi riyal currency. This was widely noticed by users, font developers and other vendors, and many are wondering how it should be supported. The Unicode Consortium has received a number of inquiries regarding this. In this blog post, we want to let you know about our plans for supporting the Saudi riyal sign, and provide other information to help vendors plan to support the new symbol.

When SAMA announced the new symbol, they also provided related pages with usage guidelines and FAQ information. In the FAQ page, they provide information about expected timeline for implementation:

It can be put into use immediately, but “reflection in financial and commercial transactions and various applications will be done gradually and in coordination with relevant entities.”

Allowance for gradual implementation is important since vendors need time to implement and deploy changes in their products and services.

Implementation Guidance

Vendor support for a new currency symbol can involve many different things, such as the following:

Updates to fonts
Updates to software keyboard layouts or new designs for physical keyboards
APIs for formatting currency values
Generation of financial statements and reports
Updates to applications, online services or devices for commercial transactions

However, all of these depend on first establishing how the new currency symbol will be represented in Unicode. This starts with receiving a proposal to encode the symbol in the Unicode Standard.

After consulting with representatives from the Unicode Technical Committee (UTC), SAMA has now submitted a proposal to UTC for encoding a new character, SAUDI RIYAL SIGN. UTC will be taking up this proposal at its next meeting, to be held April 22 – 24, 2025.

Next steps

It is anticipated that UTC will approve the new character for encoding in Unicode Version 17.0, which will be released in September 2025. The Unicode 17.0 Beta will be released for public review in early May, and we expect the Saudi riyal sign will be included there. Details related to the encoding (code point, name, property data) are unlikely to change after the Beta is released.

There is a small possibility that some changes could be made at the following UTC meeting in July, when technical details for Unicode Version 17.0 are finalized. Some vendors may choose to start working on implementations once the Beta is available, but vendors should not distribute product updates until after Unicode Version 17.0 is finalized.

Extending support with CLDR

Many implementations use Unicode CLDR data for currency formatting, so incorporating the new symbol is an important step for widespread support. CLDR 48 is slated to be released in October 2025, and would contain the new currency symbol character as an “alternative” currency symbol for the Saudi riyal.

The reason for it being an alternative rather than the default is to avoid the symbol being displayed in contexts where fonts might not yet support the new symbol, causing users to see a missing glyph for their currency:

instead of

Later, when there is confidence that the symbol is more widely supported in fonts, a future CLDR version will change currency formatting to make the format with the Saudi riyal symbol the default, rather than an alternative.

People wishing to start using the new symbol in applications and services should anticipate that it could take several months or, in some cases, even years for vendors to implement and distribute product updates.

Working together to support the new Saudi riyal symbol

The introduction of the new Saudi riyal currency symbol marks a significant milestone for financial and commercial sectors in Saudi Arabia, and the Unicode Consortium is honored to help SAMA on this journey. We encourage stakeholders to participate in the public review for Unicode 17.0 Beta and to plan their implementations and adoption accordingly.

Save the Date! Unicode Technology Workshop [November 11-13, 2025]

2025-03-06T11:08:00.000-08:00

We are excited to announce that Microsoft will be hosting the 3rd annual Unicode Technology Workshop at its Silicon Valley campus!

📅 Dates: November 11-13

✈️ Nearest Airports: San Francisco International (SFO) or San Jose International (SJC)

Join us in person for three days of community building around the Unicode technology that makes software work for billions of people. Expect workshops, seminars, free-form discussions, and lightning talks centered around i18n libraries, locale data frameworks, globalization tooling, localization pipelines, input methods, and text rendering. Network with the developers and users to help shape the future of Unicode technology.

Expect to come away with deeper knowledge on how to solve tough problems in the i18n and l10n space and how to engineer products that work better for global users. To encourage maximum collaboration amongst the attendees, this is an in-person-only event.

New for 2025!

November 11th will be a pre conference day with tutorials and training for those who want to learn new or refresh their skills.

Become a UTW Sponsor

Sponsorship opportunities are also available, with discounts for Unicode organizational members.

What’s Next?

The call for submissions along with registration information will be available later this month. Space is limited, so please watch your inbox for further information.

If you have any questions in the meantime, please contact us at events@unicode.org.

Unicode CLDR 47 Beta available for specification review: MessageFormat now Stable!

2025-02-27T15:28:00.000-08:00

The Unicode CLDR 47 Beta is now available for specification review and integration testing. The release is planned for April 17th, but any feedback on the specification needs to be submitted well in advance of that date. The changes in the specification are available at Draft LDML Modifications.

The biggest change is that MessageFormat has advanced from Final Candidate to Stable. This means that the stability guarantees are in place and implementations can finalize their APIs. There are many planned changes for CLDR 48 — see the Migration section for a list of upcoming changes that will affect implementations.

The beta has already been integrated into the development version of ICU. We would especially appreciate feedback from ICU users and non-ICU consumers of CLDR data, and on Migration issues. Feedback can be filed at CLDR Tickets.

CLDR provides key building blocks for software to support the world's languages (dates, times, numbers, sort-order, etc.). For example, all major browsers and all modern mobile phones use CLDR for language support. (See Who uses CLDR?)

Via the online Survey Tool, contributors supply data for their languages — data that is widely used to support much of the world’s software. This data is also a factor in determining which languages are supported on mobile phones and computer operating systems. CLDR 47 did not have a Survey Tool submission phase, and instead focused on tooling and a few functional areas.

MessageFormat 2.0 Stable

Tech Preview implementations are available in C++, Java, and JavaScript:

ICU4J, Java: com.ibm.icu.message2, part of ICU 76, is a tech preview implementation of the MessageFormat 2.0, together with a formatting API. See the ICU User Guide for examples and a quickstart guide, and Trying MF 2.0 Final Candidate to try a “Hello World”.
ICU4C, C++: icu::message2::MessageFormatter, part of ICU 76, is a tech preview implementation of MessageFormat 2.0, together with a formatting API. See the ICU User Guide for examples and a quickstart guide, and Trying MF 2.0 Final Candidate to try a “Hello World”.
Javascript: messageformat 4.0 provides a formatter and conversion tools for the MessageFormat 2 syntax, together with a polyfill of the runtime API proposed for ECMA-402.

(Because of the timing, these implement a slightly earlier version of the spec, but can be used for initial evaluation, testing, and experimentation.)

Tooling changes

For more information

See the draft CLDR 47 release page, which has information on accessing the data, reviewing charts of the changes, and — importantly — Migration issues.

Unicode CLDR 47 Alpha Now Available for Testing

2025-02-07T04:53:00.000-08:00

The Unicode CLDR 47 Alpha is now available for integration testing.

CLDR provides key building blocks for software to support the world's languages (dates, times, numbers, sort-order, etc.) For example, all major browsers and all modern mobile phones use CLDR for language support. (See Who uses CLDR?)

The alpha has already been integrated into the development version of ICU. We would especially appreciate feedback from non-ICU consumers of CLDR data and on Migration issues. Feedback can be filed at CLDR Tickets.

CLDR 47 focused on MessageFormat 2.0 and tooling for an expansion of DDL support. It was a closed cycle: locale data changes were limited to bug fixes and the addition of new locales, mostly regional variants.

RBNF improvements and Transforms

CLDR added Gujarati RBNF support, which provides number spell out functionality, and made improvements to many other languages.

Transforms were also improved in both CLDR 46.1 and 47 releases which included:

Adding a Hant-Latn transliterator
Aliasing Hans-Latn to Hani-Latn
Improvements to several other transliterators

More regional variants

Over the past few years there have been an increasing number of requests for locales to be added to languages, such as English, when they are commonly used in a region as a lingua franca.

CLDR has been adding additional child locales to support these requests and has begun restructuring inheritance to allow for better maintenance of shared regional data, such as currency symbols and metazone names.

46.1 Improvements

CLDR 46.1 was a special interim release of CLDR that focused on MessageFormat 2.0. It included a few additional changes:

More explicit well-formedness and validity constraints for unit of measurement identifiers
Addition of derived emoji annotations that were missing: emoji with skin tones facing right
Fixes to make the ja, ko, yue, zh datetimeSkeletons useful for generating the standard patterns
Improved date/time test data

For more information, see 46.1 Changes

Tooling changes

Many tooling changes are difficult to accommodate in a data-submission release, including performance work and UI improvements. The changes in CLDR 47 provide faster turn-around for linguists, and higher data quality. They are targeted at the CLDR 48 submission period, starting in April, 2025.

For more information

See the draft CLDR v47 Release Note, which has information on accessing the data, reviewing charts of the changes, and — importantly — Migration issues.

_______________________________________________

Adopt a Character and Support Unicode’s Mission

Looking to give that special someone a special something?
Or maybe something to treat yourself?

🕉️💗🏎️🐨🔥🚀爱₿♜🍀

Adopt a character or emoji to give it the attention it deserves, while also supporting Unicode’s mission to ensure everyone can communicate in their own languages across all devices.

Each adoption includes a digital badge and certificate that you can proudly display!

Have fun and support a good cause

You can also donate funds or gift stock

As Unicode, Inc. is a US-based open source, open standards, non-profit, 501(c)3 organization, your contribution may be eligible for a tax deduction. Please consult with a tax advisor for details.

Unicode Welcomes New Board Chair and Members

2025-02-04T10:23:00.000-08:00

Mark Davis Steps Down as Board Chair

Mark Davis, co-founder of the Unicode Consortium and a pivotal figure in global digital communication, has transitioned from Chair of the Board of Directors to a continuing role on the Board. He will also remain Chair of the CLDR Technical Committee and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the Consortium. This transition reflects Davis’s commitment to ensuring a smooth leadership transition and his continuing dedication to the Consortium’s mission of enabling everyone around the globe and across all technology platforms to seamlessly communicate and collaborate in their own languages.

During Davis’s tenure as Board Chair, the Unicode Consortium solidified its position as a crucial global organization. Under his leadership, the Consortium standardized character encoding for modern and historical scripts and symbols, including the now ubiquitous emoji. He also founded two vital projects that have become core pillars of the Consortium: CLDR (Common Locale Data Repository), providing structured data for internationalization, and ICU (International Components for Unicode), delivering production-ready code libraries. These projects, along with the Unicode encoding, are fundamental to virtually all modern phones and operating systems, enabling billions of people worldwide to communicate in their native languages.

“One of the most satisfying accomplishments in a career is to find successors who take on challenging positions – and achieve even greater impact,” said Mark Davis. “Markus Scherer has done that for ICU; Jennifer Daniel for the Emoji working group (aka ESC), and Toral Cowieson as CEO of the Consortium. Having worked with Cathy during pivotal years in the development of the Unicode encoding, I'm confident that her talents and skills will make her an exceptional Chair of the Board.”

Cathy Wissink Elected as Board Chair

We are pleased to announce that the Unicode Board of Directors voted unanimously to appoint Cathy Wissink as the new chair. Wissink is a 30-year veteran of the technology industry, focused primarily at the intersection of international markets and innovation. The bulk of her career was spent at Microsoft, in diverse roles ranging from engineering to government affairs to product certification. She’s no stranger to the Unicode Consortium, having worked on Unicode and internationalization implementation from the earliest versions of 32-bit Windows through Windows 7. Wissink also led Microsoft’s participation in the Unicode Technical Committee from 2000-2005 and served as UTC vice-chair and INCITS/L2 chair from 2002-2005.

"I am grateful for the trust that Mark and the board have placed in me as the incoming chair of the Board of Directors for the Unicode Consortium," said Wissink. "Unicode's products and standards are essential to global digital communications, and as innovation progresses and languages evolve, there is still significant work to enable all languages in digital spaces. I look forward to collaborating with Mark Davis and Toral Cowieson, as well as the broader community of technologists, linguists, and specialists to advance Unicode's mission."

Welcome to new Board Members, John Tinsley and Manuela Giese

John Tinsley is the VP of AI Solutions at Unicode member company Translated. He’s a computer scientist with more than 15 years of experience in the localization industry. Prior to Translated, he founded Iconic Translation Machines, an award-winning language technology software business that pioneered the commercial deployment of Neural Machine Translation technology. John led the business for almost a decade before selling it to RWS in 2020 in one of the largest technology deals in the language industry.

He holds a PhD in Computer Science and a degree in Applied Computational Linguistics and is a regular public speaker on topics related to language, translation, and business.

Manuela Giese is a Principal Group Manager at Microsoft. She has spent the last 25 years working on various aspects of localization across content types and languages including complex scripts; she still has fond memories of managing complex script languages through localization deliveries in the earlier days of Unicode support.

In recent years, she has been more focused on business horizontals supporting localization models and their challenges. She is passionate about language and culture and how both intersect with equality and gender. She has spent significant time in Europe, South America, and the US and currently resides on the ancestral homeland of the Nooksack, Lummi, and other Coast Salish peoples.

Unicode would also like to thank Ayman Aldahleh for his many years of service to the Unicode Board, including as Secretary until his retirement in January.

The full list of Board members is available here.

_______________________________________________

Adopt a Character and Support Unicode’s Mission

Looking to give that special someone a special something?
Or maybe something to treat yourself?

🕉️💗🏎️🐨🔥🚀爱₿♜🍀

Adopt a character or emoji to give it the attention it deserves, while also supporting Unicode’s mission to ensure everyone can communicate in their own languages across all devices.

Each adoption includes a digital badge and certificate that you can proudly display!

Have fun and support a good cause

You can also donate funds or gift stock

As Unicode, Inc. is a US-based open source, open standards, non-profit, 501(c)3 organization, your contribution may be eligible for a tax deduction. Please consult with a tax advisor for details.

Unicode 17.0 Alpha Review Opens for Feedback

2025-02-04T10:13:00.000-08:00

The repertoire for Unicode Version 17.0 is now open for early review and comment. During alpha review, the repertoire is reasonably mature and stable but is not yet completely locked down. Discussion regarding whether certain characters should be removed from the repertoire for publication is welcome. Character names and code point assignments are reasonably firm, but suggestions for improvement may still be considered.

For the alpha review, preliminary data files are also available, with data covering existing and new character repertoire. In addition, a draft for the core specification is available, with new block descriptions for some of the newly added blocks and scripts.

The primary focus for the alpha review should be on the new character repertoire. This early review is provided so that reviewers may consider the repertoire and data file issues prior to the start of beta review (currently scheduled to start in May 2025). Once beta review begins, the repertoire, code points, and character names will all be locked down, and no longer be subject to changes.

Notable Changes

The planned repertoire for Unicode 17.0 adds 4,836 new characters, bringing the total number of characters to 159,834. The most significant addition for this release is the new CJK Unified Ideographs Extension J block with 4,298 characters. Also added are five new scripts: Beria Erfe, Chisoi, Sidetic, Tolong Siki, and Tai Yo. See The Pipeline and the delta code charts for details.

In addition to new characters, 46 standardized variation sequences will be added for rotational variants of Egyptian Hieroglyphs and “Sibe” forms of quotation marks.

Unicode Emoji 17.0 will include eight new emoji characters plus additional RGI sequences—see PRI #515 Unicode Emoji 17.0 Alpha Repertoire.

Feedback for the alpha review should be reported under PRI #514 using the Unicode contact form by April 2, 2025.

_______________________________________________

Adopt a Character and Support Unicode’s Mission

Looking to give that special someone a special something?
Or maybe something to treat yourself?

🕉️💗🏎️🐨🔥🚀爱₿♜🍀

Adopt a character or emoji to give it the attention it deserves, while also supporting Unicode’s mission to ensure everyone can communicate in their own languages across all devices.

Each adoption includes a digital badge and certificate that you can proudly display!

Have fun and support a good cause

You can also donate funds or gift stock

As Unicode, Inc. is a US-based open source, open standards, non-profit, 501(c)3 organization, your contribution may be eligible for a tax deduction. Please consult with a tax advisor for details.

Highlights from UTC #182

2025-01-31T12:15:00.000-08:00

By Peter Constable, UTC Chair

A huge thank you to Google for hosting Unicode Technical Committee (UTC) meeting #182 last week, January 22 – 24th in Sunnyvale, CA!

For complete details, see the draft UTC #182 minutes.

Unicode 17.0 alpha repertoire

UTC took technical decisions for the Unicode 17.0 alpha, which will be released for public review next week. No changes were made to the new character repertoire approved for Unicode 17.0 at UTC #181, but changes were made to some details for certain characters.

Some character name changes were approved for some new characters (three Arabic honorific characters and Tolong Siki letters).
For Tangut, the glyph and stroke count will be changed for one character, and the default UCA ordering for Tangut components will be changed.
Four variation sequences will be added for “Sibe” forms of quotation marks (U+2018, U+2019, U+201C, U+201D).
For CJK, some representative glyphs for 11 characters will be changed (one “G” source and ten “V” source”). Also, 1,685 “G” source references will be updated. Various Unihan property value changes were also approved.

Data files

A significant change was approved for data files for The Unicode Standard and the other version-synchronized standards, UTS #10, UTS #39, UTS #46 and UTS #51. Up through Version 16.0, data files for The Unicode Standard have been published in version folders on the Website in the /Public/ folder (e.g., https://www.unicode.org/Public/16.0.0/), while the detail files for synchronized UTSes have been in separate, UTS-specific, folders, each with version subfolders — for example, https://www.unicode.org/Public/emoji/16.0/. Starting with Unicode 17.0, data files for the synchronized UTSes will also be published within a version subfolder under /Public/.

For example, instead of UCD and UTS #51 data files being organized as follows,

https://www.unicode.org/Public/17.0/ucd

https://www.unicode.org/Public/emoji/17.0/

They will instead be organized like this:

https://www.unicode.org/Public/17.0/ucd

https://www.unicode.org/Public/17.0/emoji/

This is close to what has been done in the Public/draft folder for pre-release data files. The organization in that folder will be adjusted for the Unicode 17.0 alpha to match what will be used for the release.

Property/data changes

Some significant property changes were approved for Unicode 17.0, including the following:

The Identifier_Type property defined in UTS #39 is used by some identifier systems to limit the set of valid identifiers. In Version 16.0, all CJK ideographs have had a property value that makes them valid in such identifier systems. UTC #182 approved a change to the Identifier_Type value for a large number of CJK ideographs to make them invalid, matching what ICANN has done for IDNA root zone labels.

The Extended_Pictographic code point property was created to make segmentation behaviours defined in UAX #14 and UAX #29 forward compatible for future emoji characters. When it was created in Unicode 11.0, all unassigned code points in the range 1F000..1FFFD were given this property. When non-emoji characters are assigned in that range, they should not have that property, but UTC has not been consistent to remove that property for those code points. This will be corrected in Unicode 17.0.

UTC #181 also authorized a proposed draft for a possible new UAX #60 to document data for non-CJK ideographs based on L2/25-052; a public review issue for this will be posted soon. This would be analogous to UAX #38 but apply to ideographic scripts such as Nüshu and Tangut.

Please review!

UTC invites feedback on the following proposed specs:

PRI #509, Proposed Draft UTS #58, Unicode Link Detection and Serialization
PRI #510, Proposed Draft UTR #59, East Asian Spacing

As mentioned above, Identifier_Type property values for CJK characters are being changed based on analysis provided by ICANN. Other documents submitted to UTC propose other Identifier_Type changes based on similar analysis. UTC invites review and feedback on these documents; see the following public review issue for details:

PRI 517, Review of Identifier_Type for existing characters

MessageFormat 2.0 Final Candidate: Review Requested

2025-01-16T09:51:00.000-08:00

Unicode recently released CLDR 46.1, a special interim release of CLDR that focuses on the Final Candidate release of MessageFormat 2.0. There are a few other changes, which are summarized at the end of this post.

MessageFormat 2.0 is a significant evolution from ICU MessageFormat 1.0. It is both more powerful in its abilities to represent localizable messages, and also strives to make those messages easier to translate. Unlike its predecessor, it is:

not defined through its ICU API, but by a specification that can be applied to by a wide range of implementations — and already has non-ICU implementations.
designed for extensibility: new functions and options can easily be added.

The specification has been developed by the MessageFormat Working Group over the past five years and is open for public comment. It encompasses all the capabilities of the MessageFormat 1.0 syntax and is designed to handle messages in other existing message formats via its data model. Please review the specification before its finalization, and supply feedback on any areas where it does not meet this goal.

It is important to supply feedback on the Final Candidate by February 12, but ideally as early as possible.

While the structure is designed to be very extensible, once the Final Candidate is released as an approved version (in mid-March 2025), stability constraints will prevent incompatible changes to syntax and semantics of MessageFormat 2.0.

To supply feedback file an issue at: Unicode Message Format Issues — GitHub.

Tech preview implementations of MessageFormat 2.0 include Java, C++ and JavaScript. People can try these out with their implementations to see if there are any issues.

Java: com.ibm.icu.message2, part of ICU 76, is a tech preview implementation of the MessageFormat 2.0, together with a formatting API.

See the ICU User Guide for examples and a quickstart guide, and Trying MF 2.0 Final Candidate to try a “Hello World”.

C/C++: icu::message2::MessageFormatter, part of ICU 76, is a tech preview implementation of MessageFormat 2.0, together with a formatting API.

See the ICU User Guide for examples and a quickstart guide, and Trying MF 2.0 Final Candidate to try a “Hello World”.

JavaScript: messageformat 4.0 provides a formatter and conversion tools for the MessageFormat 2 syntax, together with a polyfill of the runtime API proposed for ECMA-402.

In addition to the MessageFormat 2.0 Final Candidate, there are a few other changes in the CLDR 46.1 release, specifically:

More explicit well-formedness and validity constraints for unit of measurement identifiers
Addition of derived emoji annotations that were missing: emoji with skin tones facing right
Fixes to make the ja, ko, yue, zh datetimeSkeletons useful for generating the standard patterns
Improved date/time test data

For more information, see 46.1 Changes

Heiltsuk Revitalization: Introducing New Letters for the Haíɫzaqv Language

2024-12-04T05:16:00.000-08:00

By Kevin King, Type Designer & Researcher, Typotheque

Indigenous people in British Columbia speaking Haíɫzaqv language were missing characters to correctly render the language in writing. As part of an ongoing partnership between the Haíɫzaqv (Heiltsuk) Nation and Typotheque under a Memorandum of Understanding, Heiltsuk Revitalization and Typotheque have created this video in order to present the story of how the publication of new Latin script characters were achieved and included in Unicode Version 16.0.

This represents a major achievement for language reclamation and sovereignty for the Haíɫzaqv Nation, as it provided complete representation of their orthography within the Unicode Standard, removing significant barriers to digital language access. Alongside this announcement, Typotheque has prepared localized fonts – free and available in perpetuity to all community members – as well as updated keyboard layouts.

With this roadblock removed, Heiltsuk Revitalization and Typotheque look forward to collaborating under partnership on actions that help further extend the impact of this successful character addition to Unicode which enables greater access and engagement of Haíɫzaqvḷa (the Heiltsuk language) for the present and future.

To learn more, please read the full announcement on the Heiltsuk Revitalization website, and visit the Typotheque Indigenous North American Typography Research project’s website here.

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🎁 Giving Tuesday is December 3, 2024

2024-12-02T12:02:00.001-08:00

What is Giving Tuesday?

Giving Tuesday is a global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world.

This Giving Tuesday, join us in supporting the technology that ensures billions can communicate seamlessly across platforms. Your donation fuels innovation and inclusivity in global digital standards.

Ways to Support Unicode's Mission

As a non-profit, open-source, open-standards organization, the Unicode Consortium is funded by membership fees and donations from individuals, corporations, and other organizations.

This Giving Tuesday, there are many ways you can support Unicode:

Become an Organizational Member
Become an Individual Member
Direct Donations (either one-time or recurring)

Ask your employer about Matching Gift Programs and double the impact!💡
Donate Stock👍

Adopt a Character: It’s a fun, unique, and meaningful way to celebrate a loved one 😍, a special milestone 💍, a personal passion ⛳, or your business 🖥️! Choose your favorite character, symbol, or emoji–over 156,000 options! 👉 Each adoption comes with a digital badge and certificate. 🥇🥈🥉

Join us in building a digital world where everyone can communicate—no matter the language or platform. Together, we can make a lasting impact.

Learn how your funding fuels Unicode's mission!

Thank you for your continued support.

UTC #181 Highlights

2024-11-26T06:56:00.003-08:00

Unicode Technical Committee (UTC) meeting #181 was held November 6 – 8 in Cupertino, hosted by Apple. Here are some highlights.

Starting the Unicode 17.0 cycle

UTC approved a plan and timeline for the Unicode 17.0 release. Here’s a summary of the timeline:

November 2024: UTC #181 approved new character repertoire
January 2025: UTC #182 will finalize content for the alpha release
February – March: alpha release for public review
April: UTC #183 will finalize content for the beta release
May – June: beta release for public review
July: UTC #184 will finalize 17.0 content
September: Unicode 17.0 release

Unicode 17.0 character and emoji repertoire

UTC #179 had previously approved 4,301 CJK ideographs for Unicode 17.0, including the addition of the CJK Unified Ideographs Extension J block. At this UTC meeting, a number of additional characters and symbols were approved for Unicode 17.0, including five new scripts:

Beria Erfe is a modern-use script used for the Zaghawa language in eastern Africa.
Chisoi is a modern-use script used for the Kurmali language in eastern India.
Sidetic is an historic script that was used in ancient Anatolia.
Tai Yo is the traditional script for the Tai Yo language, spoken in Vietnam and Laos.
Tolong Siki is a modern-use script used for the Kurukh language in eastern India.

A few changes were made to the approved new CJK ideographs repertoire: two ideographs from the CJK Extension J block were removed, while four ideographs were added. UTC also approved 297 other non-emoji character additions for already encoded scripts or symbol blocks.

UTC #181 also approved 8 new emoji characters for Unicode 17.0, along with a number of emoji ZWJ sequences; see document L2/24-226R for details.

Besides characters approved for Unicode 17.0, code points were provisionally assigned for 365 new characters that are candidates for encoding in a future Unicode version.

See the Pipeline page for all characters currently approved for Unicode 17.0, along with code points provisionally assigned for future encoding.

Algorithm specs

UTC approved some significant changes related to algorithm specifications for Unicode 17.0. Notably, in UAX #14, a new Line_Break property value was approved — Unambiguous_Hyphen — along with related changes to various rules of the line-breaking algorithm. Also, for UTS #10, Unicode Collation Algorithm, information about conformance tests had previously been published in a companion document, but this will be incorporated into UTS #10 for version 17.0. New public review issues will be posted soon to get feedback on the planned changes.

UTC also approved proposed drafts for two new algorithm specifications:

Proposed Draft UTS #58, Unicode Linkification: this proposed standard will specify a mechanism for detecting URLs that contain Unicode characters.
Proposed Draft UTR #59, East Asian Spacing: this proposed technical report will specify an algorithm for established typographic conventions in East Asian text for spacing between runs of text from different scripts.

A public review issue has been posted for review of PD UTS #58 (see PRI #509). A public review issue for PD UTR #59 will be posted soon.

Update on Text Terminal Working Group

At UTC #175, a temporary working group was formed to work on improving support for Unicode text in text terminal environments. After a slow start due to the original chairperson no longer being available, Fraser Gordon was chosen as a new chair for the group, and it has started to function with several interested participants. Fraser Gordon reported on the group’s activity and requested feedback from UTC on some technical questions the working group was facing, including whether it could be in scope to propose requirements for fonts or a text protocol for signaling between applications and terminals — UTC feedback was that either of these could be considered. See L2/24-264 for more details.

UTC coming to Eastern US

Earlier this year, UTC started discussing the possibility of trying new locations to make it easier for people in other regions or time zones to participate. Between having people interested from many parts of the world as well as travel constraints on regular participants, there is no perfect answer. However, we received a generous offer from the University of New Hampshire to host a meeting there, and so UTC has decided to switch the location of the July 2025 meeting from Redmond, WA to Manchester, New Hampshire (about an hour drive north of Boston). Some preliminary logistic info will be provided soon to give plenty of time to consider travel plans.

For complete details on outcomes from UTC #181, see the draft minutes.

________________________________________________

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Feedback Requested on Proposed Draft UTS #58 Unicode Linkification

2024-11-26T06:49:00.001-08:00

Feedback is requested on Proposed Draft UTS #58 Unicode Linkification, especially by technologists working with browsers and any programs that automatically apply links to URLs, such as email programs.

So what is Linkification?

With most email programs, when someone pastes in the plain text:

The page https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/アルベルト・アインシュタイン contains information about Albert Einstein.

and sends to someone else, they receive it as:

The page https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/アルベルト・アインシュタイン contains information about Albert Einstein.

URLs are also “linkified” in many other applications, such when pasting into a word processor (triggered by typing a space afterward, for example).

Problem

However, many products (many text messaging apps, video messaging chats, etc.) completely fail to recognize any non-ASCII characters past the domain name. And even among those that do recognize such non-ASCII characters, there are gratuitous differences in where they stop linkifying.

The linkification process for URLs is already fragmented — with different implementations producing very different results — but it is amplified with the addition of non-ASCII characters, which often have very different behavior. That is, developers’ lack of familiarity with the behavior of non-ASCII characters has caused the different implementations of linkification to splinter. Yet non-ASCII characters are very important for readability. People do not want to see the above URL expressed in escaped ASCII:

The page https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AB%E3%83%99%E3%83%AB%E3%83%88%29%E3%82%A2%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A5%E3%82%BF%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B3 contains information about Albert Einstein.

Proposed Solution

This proposed draft Unicode Technical Standard #58 Unicode Linkification specifies a standard mechanism for detecting URLs embedded in plain text — in particular, detecting URLs containing non-ASCII characters. It also defines the minimally necessary escaping of non-ASCII code points in the Path, Query, and Fragment portions of a URL that aligns with the mechanism for detecting URLs.

How to Provide Feedback

For information about how to discuss this Public Review Issue and how to supply formal feedback, please see the feedback and discussion instructions. The closing date is 2025 January 02 for this draft, but this is only the first step towards approval.

_________________________________________________

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Announcing ICU4X 2.0 Beta 1 (and UTW 2024 recording)

2024-11-26T06:49:00.000-08:00

Across the globe, people are coming online with smaller and more varied devices including smartphones, smartwatches, and gadgets. An offshoot of the International Components for Unicode (ICU) Technical Committee, the ICU4X Committee, is responsible for enabling these next-generation devices to communicate with their users in thousands of languages. Written in Rust, ICU4X brings lightweight, modular, and secure internationalization libraries to low-resource devices and many programming languages.

The ICU4X-TC is happy to now announce the release of ICU4X 2.0 Beta 1. Learn more about it in our UTW 2024 presentation: 2024 ICU4X 2.0: Next Level i18n

This release includes a rewritten datetime component, type-safe preferences in all constructors, CLDR 46 and Unicode 16 data, new experimental duration and unit formatting components, an all-new WebAssembly demo, and improvements to many other components including locale tailoring in segmenter, algorithmic plural selection, and IXDTF parsing for zoned datetimes.

This release includes breaking changes. The most common you will encounter include:

All constructors take a preference bag by value instead of a `&DataLocale`.
Many functions had subtle renames, such as `try_from_bytes` becoming `try_from_utf8`.
The datetime component was rewritten, and call sites will need to be migrated.

Refer to the latest documentation for more information. Please also ask questions on GitHub:

https://github.com/unicode-org/icu4x/discussions/5872

This is a beta release, meaning that the team expects this to be mostly compatible with the upcoming 2.0 final release, but there is still room to make changes. Please send feedback by creating an issue or discussion on GitHub.

________________________________________________

Adopt a Character and Support Unicode’s Mission

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Or maybe something to treat yourself?
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Adopt a character or emoji to give it the attention it deserves, while also supporting Unicode’s mission to ensure everyone can communicate in their own languages across all devices.

Each adoption includes a digital badge and certificate that you can proudly display!

Have fun and support a good cause

You can also donate funds or gift stock

As Unicode, Inc. is a US-based open source, open standards, non-profit, 501(c)3 organization, your contribution may be eligible for a tax deduction. Please consult with a tax advisor for details.