Myanmar (Unicode block)

Last updated
Myanmar
RangeU+1000..U+109F
(160 code points)
Plane BMP
Scripts Myanmar
Major alphabets Burmese
Mon
Karen
Kayah
Shan
Palaung
Assigned160 code points
Unused0 reserved code points
Unicode version history
3.0 (1999)78 (+78)
5.1 (2008)156 (+78)
5.2 (2009)160 (+4)
Unicode documentation
Code chart ∣ Web page
Note: [1] [2]
Range used for Tibetan script prior to Unicode 1.0.1 (see Tibetan (obsolete Unicode block)).

Myanmar is a Unicode block containing characters for the Burmese, Mon, Shan, Palaung, and the Karen languages of Myanmar, as well as the Aiton and Phake languages of Northeast India. It is also used to write Pali and Sanskrit in Myanmar.

Contents

Block

Myanmar [1]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+100xက
U+101x
U+102x
U+103x    
U+104x
U+105x
U+106x
U+107x
U+108x
U+109x
Notes
1. ^ As of Unicode version 15.0

The block has sixteen variation sequences defined for standardized variants. [3] They use U+FE00 VARIATION SELECTOR-1 (VS01) to denote the dotted letters used for the Khamti, Aiton, and Phake languages. [4] (Note that this is font dependent. For example, the Padauk font supports some of the dotted forms.)

Variation sequences for dotted forms
U+1000100210041010101110151019101A101C101D1022103110751078107A1080
base code pointက
base + VS01က

History

The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Myanmar block:

Historic and nonstandard uses of range

In Unicode 1.0.0, part of the current Myanmar block was used for Tibetan. In Microsoft Windows, collation data referring to the old Tibetan block was retained as late as Windows XP, and removed in Windows 2003. [5]

In Myanmar, devices and software localisation often use Zawgyi fonts rather than Unicode-compliant fonts. [6] These use the same range as the Unicode Myanmar block (0x1000–0x109F), and are even applied to text encoded like UTF-8 (although Zawgyi text does not officially constitute UTF-8), despite only a subset of the code points being interpreted the same way. Zawgyi lacks support for Myanmar-script languages other than Burmese, but heuristic methods exist for detecting the encoding of text which is assumed to be Burmese. [7]

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Tibetan is a Unicode block containing characters for the Tibetan, Dzongkha, and other languages of China, Bhutan, Nepal, Mongolia, northern India, eastern Pakistan and Russia.

Myanmar Extended-A is a Unicode block containing Myanmar characters for writing the Khamti Shan and Aiton languages.

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References

  1. "Unicode character database". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  2. "Enumerated Versions of The Unicode Standard". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  3. "Unicode Character Database: Standardized Variation Sequences". The Unicode Consortium.
  4. Hosken, Martin (2015-11-03). "L2/15-320: Proposal to Create Variation Sequences for Khamti Characters" (PDF).
  5. Kaplan, Michael (2007-08-28). "Every character has a story #29: U+1000^H^H^H^H0f40, (TIBETAN or MYANMAR LETTER KA, depending on when you ask)". Sorting it all out.
  6. Nagarajah, Sasha. "Zawgyi vs. Unicode". Global App Testing.
  7. Loomis, Steven R.; Cornelius, Craig (2019). "Myanmar Scripts and Languages". Frequently Asked Questions. Unicode Consortium.