Unicode contains a number of characters that represent various cultural, political, and religious symbols. Most, but not all, of these symbols are in the Miscellaneous Symbols block.
The majority of them are treated as graphic symbols that are not characters. [1] Exceptions to this include characters in certain writing systems that are also in use as political or religious symbols, such as 卐 (U+5350), the swastika encoded as a Chinese character (although it is also encoded as a religious symbol at U+0FD5); or ॐ (U+0950), the Om symbol which is, strictly speaking, a Devanagari ligature. A special case is ﷲ (U+FDF2), which is a special ligature of Arabic script used only for writing of the word Allah . This ligature is in the Arabic Presentation Forms-A block, which was only encoded for compatibility and is not recommended for use in regular Arabic text. [2]
Unicode defines the semantics of a character by its character identity and its normative properties, one of these being the character's general category, given as a two-letter code (e.g. Lu for "uppercase letter"). Characters that fall in the "political or religious" category are given the "general category" So, which is the catch-all category for "Symbol, other", i.e. anything considered a "symbol" which does not fall in any of the three other categories of Sm (mathematical symbols), Sc (currency symbols) or Sk (phonetic modifier symbols, i.e. IPA signs not considered letters). [3]
The Unicode chart for the Armenian block notes two religious symbols: [4]
| Symbol | Code point | Name |
|---|---|---|
| ֍ | U+058D | RIGHT-FACING ARMENIAN ETERNITY SIGN |
| ֎ | U+058E | LEFT-FACING ARMENIAN ETERNITY SIGN |
The Dingbats block also contains some symbols with political/religious connotations: [5]
| Symbol | Code point | Name |
|---|---|---|
| ✙ | U+2719 | OUTLINED GREEK CROSS |
| ✚ | U+271A | HEAVY GREEK CROSS |
| ✛ | U+271B | OPEN CENTER CROSS |
| ✜ | U+271C | HEAVY OPEN CENTER CROSS |
| ✝ | U+271D | LATIN CROSS |
| ✞ | U+271E | SHADOWED WHITE LATIN CROSS |
| ✟ | U+271F | OUTLINED LATIN CROSS |
| ✠ | U+2720 | MALTESE CROSS |
| ✡ | U+2721 | STAR OF DAVID |
Other weights of the Greek cross are in Geometric Shapes Extended.
| Symbol | Code point | Name |
|---|---|---|
| 🞡 | U+1F7A1 | THIN GREEK CROSS |
| 🞢 | U+1F7A2 | LIGHT GREEK CROSS |
| 🞣 | U+1F7A3 | MEDIUM GREEK CROSS |
| 🞤 | U+1F7A4 | BOLD GREEK CROSS |
| 🞥 | U+1F7A5 | VERY BOLD GREEK CROSS |
| 🞦 | U+1F7A6 | VERY HEAVY GREEK CROSS |
| 🞧 | U+1F7A7 | EXTREMELY HEAVY GREEK CROSS |
| 🟙 | U+1F7D9 | NINE POINTED WHITE STAR (Baháʼí symbol) |
The Unicode chart for the Enclosed Ideographic Supplement block notes several symbols used for Chinese folk religion: [6]
| Symbol | Code point | Name and notes |
|---|---|---|
| 🉠 | U+1F260 | ROUNDED SYMBOL FOR FU (luck) |
| 🉡 | U+1F261 | ROUNDED SYMBOL FOR LU (prosperity) |
| 🉢 | U+1F262 | ROUNDED SYMBOL FOR SHOU (longevity) |
| 🉣 | U+1F263 | ROUNDED SYMBOL FOR XI (happiness) |
| 🉤 | U+1F264 | ROUNDED SYMBOL FOR SHUANGXI (double happiness, love and marriage) |
| 🉥 | U+1F265 | ROUNDED SYMBOL FOR CAI (wealth) |
The Unicode chart for the Miscellaneous Symbols block has a section explicitly labelled "Religious and political symbols": [7]
| Text | Emoji | Code point | Name and notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☦︎ | ☦️ | U+2626 | ORTHODOX CROSS |
| ☧ | U+2627 | CHI RHO = Constantine's cross, Christogram → 2CE9 ⳩ coptic symbol khi ro | |
| ☨ | U+2628 | CROSS OF LORRAINE | |
| ☩ | U+2629 | CROSS OF JERUSALEM → 1F70A alchemical symbol for vinegar | |
| ☪︎ | ☪️ | U+262A | STAR AND CRESCENT |
| ☫ | U+262B | FARSI SYMBOL = symbol of Iran (1.0) | |
| ☬ | 🪯 | U+262C | ADI SHAKTI = Gurmukhi khanda - ਖੰਡਾ |
| ☭ | U+262D | HAMMER AND SICKLE | |
| ☮︎ | ☮️ | U+262E | PEACE SYMBOL |
| ☯︎ | ☯️ | U+262F | YIN YANG → 0FCA ࿊ Tibetan symbol nor bu nyis -khyil |
| ⛧ | U+26E7 | INVERTED PENTAGRAM |
Elsewhere in the block is:
| Text | Emoji | Code point | Name and notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| ♰ | U+2670 | WEST SYRIAC CROSS | |
| ♱ | U+2671 | EAST SYRIAC CROSS | |
| ⛩ | ⛩️ | U+26E9 | SHINTO SHRINE |
The emoji variants have U+FE0F after the symbol.
The Unicode chart for the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block notes many religious symbols: [8]
| Text | Emoji | Code point | Name and notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 📿︎ | 📿️ | U+1F4FF | PRAYER BEADS |
| 🕀 | U+1F540 | CIRCLED CROSS POMMEE (Orthodox typicon symbol for great feast service) | |
| 🕁 | U+1F541 | CROSS POMMEE WITH HALF-CIRCLE BELOW (Orthodox typicon symbol for vigil service) | |
| 🕂 | U+1F542 | CROSS POMMEE (Orthodox typicon symbol for Polyeleos) | |
| 🕃 | U+1F543 | NOTCHED LEFT SEMICIRCLE WITH THREE DOTS (Orthodox typicon symbol for lower rank feast) | |
| 🕄 | U+1F544 | NOTCHED RIGHT SEMICIRCLE WITH THREE DOTS (Orthodox typicon symbol for lower rank feast) | |
| 🕅 | U+1F545 | SYMBOL FOR MARKS CHAPTER (Orthodox typicon symbol for difficult sections) | |
| 🕆 | U+1F546 | WHITE LATIN CROSS = cross outline | |
| 🕇 | U+1F547 | HEAVY LATIN CROSS | |
| 🕈 | U+1F548 | CELTIC CROSS | |
| 🕉︎ | 🕉️ | U+1F549 | OM SYMBOL (generic symbol independent of Devanagari letter U+0950ॐDEVANAGARI OM) |
| 🕊︎ | 🕊️ | U+1F54A | DOVE OF PEACE = peace |
| 🕋︎ | 🕋️ | U+1F54B | KAABA |
| 🕌︎ | 🕌️ | U+1F54C | MOSQUE |
| 🕍︎ | 🕍️ | U+1F54D | SYNAGOGUE |
| 🕎︎ | 🕎️ | U+1F54E | MENORAH WITH NINE BRANCHES = hanukiah |
Ostensibly religious symbols are, however, not limited to this section, as the same chart has another short section of two characters labelled "Syriac cross symbols", with the explanatory gloss "These symbols are used in liturgical texts of Syriac-speaking churches". Another short section of two symbols is headed "Medical and healing symbols", including U+2624 ☤ Caduceus (c.f. U+1F750 🝐 "alchemical symbol for caduceus"), U+2695 ⚕ Staff of Aesculapius, and U+2625 ☥ Ankh, all of which originate in polytheistic religious traditions. [8]
The Unicode chart for the Symbols and Pictographs Extended-A block notes one religious symbol": [9]
| Text | Emoji | Code point | Name and notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🪯︎ | 🪯️ | U+1FAAF | KHANDA |
The Unicode chart for the Tibetan block notes several religious symbols and a political symbol: [10]
| Symbol | Code point | Name and notes |
|---|---|---|
| ࿕ | U+0FD5 | RIGHT-FACING SVASTI SIGN = gyung drung nang -khor (symbol of good luck and well-being in India) |
| ࿖ | U+0FD6 | LEFT-FACING SVASTI SIGN = gyung drung phyi -khor |
| ࿗ | U+0FD7 | RIGHT-FACING SVASTI SIGN WITH DOTS = gyung drung nang -khor bzhi mig can |
| ࿘ | U+0FD8 | LEFT-FACING SVASTI SIGN WITH DOTS = gyung drung phyi -khor bzhi mig can |
The Soyombo symbol is a special character in the Soyombo alphabet devised for the Mongolian language. It appears in several flags of Mongolia. Three forms appear in the Soyombo block.
| Symbol | Image | Code point | Name and notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 𑪞 |  | U+11A9E | SOYOMBO HEAD MARK WITH MOON AND SUN AND TRIPLE FLAME • national symbol of Mongolia |
| 𑪟 | U+11A9F | SOYOMBO HEAD MARK WITH MOON AND SUN AND FLAME | |
| 𑪠 |  | U+11AA0 | SOYOMBO HEAD MARK WITH MOON AND SUN |
National flags are implemented by Regional indicator symbols in the Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement block.
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard, is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, which is maintained by the Unicode Consortium, defines as of the current version (15.0) 149,186 characters covering 161 modern and historic scripts, as well as symbols, thousands of emoji, and non-visual control and formatting codes.
An emoji is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conversation. Examples of emoji are 😂, 😃, 🧘🏻♂️, 🌍, 🌦️, 🥖, 🚗, 📱, 🎉, ❤️, ✅, and 🏁. Emoji exist in various genres, including facial expressions, common objects, places and types of weather, and animals. They are much like emoticons, except emoji are pictures rather than typographic approximations; the term "emoji" in the strict sense refers to such pictures which can be represented as encoded characters, but it is sometimes applied to messaging stickers by extension. Originally meaning pictograph, the word emoji comes from Japanese e + moji; the resemblance to the English words emotion and emoticon is purely coincidental. The ISO 15924 script code for emoji is Zsye.
A Unicode block is one of several contiguous ranges of numeric character codes of the Unicode character set that are defined by the Unicode Consortium for administrative and documentation purposes. Typically, proposals such as the addition of new glyphs are discussed and evaluated by considering the relevant block or blocks as a whole.
Miscellaneous Symbols is a Unicode block (U+2600–U+26FF) containing glyphs representing concepts from a variety of categories: astrological, astronomical, chess, dice, musical notation, political symbols, recycling, religious symbols, trigrams, warning signs, and weather, among others.
In Unicode, a Private Use Area (PUA) is a range of code points that, by definition, will not be assigned characters by the Unicode Consortium. Three private use areas are defined: one in the Basic Multilingual Plane, and one each in, and nearly covering, planes 15 and 16. The code points in these areas cannot be considered as standardized characters in Unicode itself. They are intentionally left undefined so that third parties may define their own characters without conflicting with Unicode Consortium assignments. Under the Unicode Stability Policy, the Private Use Areas will remain allocated for that purpose in all future Unicode versions.
Geometric Shapes is a Unicode block of 96 symbols at code point range U+25A0–25FF.
Over a thousand characters from the Latin script are encoded in the Unicode Standard, grouped in several basic and extended Latin blocks. The extended ranges contain mainly precomposed letters plus diacritics that are equivalently encoded with combining diacritics, as well as some ligatures and distinct letters, used for example in the orthographies of various African languages and the Vietnamese alphabet. Latin Extended-C contains additions for Uighur and the Claudian letters. Latin Extended-D comprises characters that are mostly of interest to medievalists. Latin Extended-E mostly comprises characters used for German dialectology (Teuthonista). Latin Extended-F and -G contain characters for phonetic transcription.
In computing, a Unicode symbol is a Unicode character which is not part of a script used to write a natural language, but is nonetheless available for use as part of a text.
The Unicode Consortium and the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2/WG 2 jointly collaborate on the list of the characters in the Universal Coded Character Set. The Universal Coded Character Set, most commonly called the Universal Character Set, is an international standard to map characters, discrete symbols used in natural language, mathematics, music, and other domains, to unique machine-readable data values. By creating this mapping, the UCS enables computer software vendors to interoperate, and transmit—interchange—UCS-encoded text strings from one to another. Because it is a universal map, it can be used to represent multiple languages at the same time. This avoids the confusion of using multiple legacy character encodings, which can result in the same sequence of codes having multiple interpretations depending on the character encoding in use, resulting in mojibake if the wrong one is chosen.
Many scripts in Unicode, such as Arabic, have special orthographic rules that require certain combinations of letterforms to be combined into special ligature forms. In English, the common ampersand (&) developed from a ligature in which the handwritten Latin letters e and t were combined. The rules governing ligature formation in Arabic can be quite complex, requiring special script-shaping technologies such as the Arabic Calligraphic Engine by Thomas Milo's DecoType.
In the Unicode standard, a plane is a continuous group of 65,536 (216) code points. There are 17 planes, identified by the numbers 0 to 16, which corresponds with the possible values 00–1016 of the first two positions in six position hexadecimal format (U+hhhhhh). Plane 0 is the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP), which contains most commonly used characters. The higher planes 1 through 16 are called "supplementary planes". The last code point in Unicode is the last code point in plane 16, U+10FFFF. As of Unicode version 15.0, five of the planes have assigned code points (characters), and seven are named.
Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement is a Unicode block consisting of Latin alphabet characters and Arabic numerals enclosed in circles, ovals or boxes, used for a variety of purposes. It is encoded in the range U+1F100–U+1F1FF in the Supplementary Multilingual Plane.
Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs is a Unicode block containing meteorological and astronomical symbols, emoji characters largely for compatibility with Japanese telephone carriers' implementations of Shift JIS, and characters originally from the Wingdings and Webdings fonts found in Microsoft Windows.
A variant form is a different glyph for a character, encoded in Unicode through the mechanism of variation sequences: sequences in Unicode that consist of a base character followed by a variation selector character.
Dingbats is a Unicode block containing dingbats. Most of its characters were taken from Zapf Dingbats; it was the Unicode block to have imported characters from a specific typeface; Unicode later adopted a policy that excluded symbols with "no demonstrated need or strong desire to exchange in plain text," and thus no further dingbat typefaces were encoded until Webdings and Wingdings were encoded in Version 7.0. Some ornaments are also an emoji, having optional presentation variants.
Emoticons is a Unicode block containing emoticons or emoji. Most of them are intended as representations of faces, although some of them include hand gestures or non-human characters.
Transport and Map Symbols is a Unicode block containing transportation and map icons, largely for compatibility with Japanese telephone carriers' emoji implementations of Shift JIS, and to encode characters in the Wingdings and Wingdings 2 character sets.
Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs is a Unicode block containing emoji characters. It extends the set of symbols included in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block. It also includes Typikon symbols.
Symbols and Pictographs Extended-A is a Unicode block containing emoji characters. It extends the set of symbols included in the Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs block.
