Small Kana Extension

Last updated
Small Kana Extension
RangeU+1B130..U+1B16F
(64 code points)
Plane SMP
Scripts Hiragana (4 char.)
Katakana (5 char.)
Assigned9 code points
Unused55 reserved code points
Unicode version history
12.0 (2019)7 (+7)
15.0 (2022)9 (+2)
Unicode documentation
Code chart ∣ Web page
Note: [1] [2]

Small Kana Extension is a Unicode block containing additional small variants for the Hiragana and Katakana syllabaries, [3] in addition to those in the Hiragana, Katakana and Katakana Phonetic Extensions blocks.

Contents

Block

Small Kana Extension [1] [2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+1B13x𛄲
U+1B14x
U+1B15x𛅐𛅑𛅒𛅕
U+1B16x𛅤𛅥𛅦𛅧
Notes
1. ^ As of Unicode version 15.1
2. ^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

Unassigned code points in the U+1B130 to U+1B163 range were set aside for possible future small kana. [4] [5] [6]

History

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

Fonts

As of 28 March 2024, 2 fonts are known to support the 15.0 Small Kana Extension range:

Other fonts

See also

Related Research Articles

Hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana as well as kanji.

Katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script.

Kana are syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. In current usage, kana most commonly refers to hiragana and katakana. It can also refer to their ancestor magana, which were Chinese characters used phonetically to transcribe Japanese ; and hentaigana, which are historical variants of the now-standard hiragana.

In the Japanese writing system, hentaigana are variant forms of hiragana.

<i>Mojikyō</i> Character encoding scheme

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A is a Japanese kana that represents the mora consisting of single vowel. The hiragana character あ is based on the sōsho style of kanji 安, while the katakana ア is from the radical of kanji 阿. In the modern Japanese system of alphabetical order, it occupies the first position of the alphabet, before い. Additionally, it is the 36th letter in Iroha, after て, before さ. The Unicode for あ is U+3042, and the Unicode for ア is U+30A2.

<i>Chōonpu</i> Japanese punctuation mark

The chōonpu, also known as chōonkigō (長音記号), onbiki (音引き), bōbiki (棒引き), or Katakana-Hiragana Prolonged Sound Mark by the Unicode Consortium, is a Japanese symbol that indicates a chōon, or a long vowel of two morae in length. Its form is a horizontal or vertical line in the center of the text with the width of one kanji or kana character. It is written horizontally in horizontal text and vertically in vertical text. The chōonpu is usually used to indicate a long vowel sound in katakana writing, rarely in hiragana writing, and never in romanized Japanese. The chōonpu is a distinct mark from the dash, and in most Japanese typefaces it can easily be distinguished. In horizontal writing it is similar in appearance to, but should not be confused with, the kanji character 一 ("one").

<span class="mw-page-title-main">JIS X 0201</span> Japanese single byte character encoding

JIS X 0201, a Japanese Industrial Standard developed in 1969, was the first Japanese electronic character set to become widely used. The character set was initially known as JIS C 6220 before the JIS category reform. Its two forms were a 7-bit encoding or an 8-bit encoding, although the 8-bit form was dominant until Unicode replaced it. The full name of this standard is 7-bit and 8-bit coded character sets for information interchange (7ビット及び8ビットの情報交換用符号化文字集合).

Half-width kana are katakana characters displayed compressed at half their normal width, instead of the usual square (1:1) aspect ratio. For example, the usual (full-width) form of the katakana ka is カ while the half-width form is カ. Half-width hiragana is included in Unicode, and it is usable on Web or in e-books via CSS's font-feature-settings: "hwid" 1 with Adobe-Japan1-6 based OpenType fonts. Half-width kanji is usable on modern computers, and is used in some receipt printers, electric bulletin board and old computers.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Halfwidth and fullwidth forms</span> Alternative width characters in East Asian typography

In CJK computing, graphic characters are traditionally classed into fullwidth and halfwidth characters. Unlike monospaced fonts, a halfwidth character occupies half the width of a fullwidth character, hence the name.

Hiragana is a Unicode block containing hiragana characters for the Japanese language.

Katakana is a Unicode block containing katakana characters for the Japanese and Ainu languages.

Katakana Phonetic Extensions is a Unicode block containing additional small katakana characters for writing the Ainu language, in addition to characters in the Katakana block.

Kana Supplement is a Unicode block containing one archaic katakana character and 255 hentaigana characters. Additional hentaigana characters are encoded in the Kana Extended-A block.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Enclosed Ideographic Supplement</span> Unicode character block

Enclosed Ideographic Supplement is a Unicode block containing forms of characters and words from Chinese, Japanese and Korean enclosed within or stylised as squares, brackets, or circles. It contains three such characters containing one or more kana, and many containing CJK ideographs. Many of its characters were added for compatibility with the Japanese ARIB STD-B24 standard. Six symbols from Chinese folk religion were added in Unicode version 10.

Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms is the name of a Unicode block U+FF00–FFEF, provided so that older encodings containing both halfwidth and fullwidth characters can have lossless translation to/from Unicode. It is the second-to-last block of the Basic Multilingual Plane, followed only by the short Specials block at U+FFF0–FFFF. Its block name in Unicode 1.0 was Halfwidth and Fullwidth Variants.

Kana Extended-A is a Unicode block containing hentaigana and historic kana characters. Additional hentaigana characters are encoded in the Kana Supplement block.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ARIB STD B24 character set</span> Character encoding and character set extensions used in Japanese broadcasting.

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Kana Extended-B is a Unicode block containing Taiwanese kana.

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. "Chapter 18.4: 18.4 Hiragana and Katakana". The Unicode Standard, Version 12.0 (PDF). Mountain View, CA: Unicode, Inc. June 2018. ISBN   978-1-936213-22-1.
  4. Suignard, Michel (2017-06-05). "N4825: Additional repertoire for ISO/IEC 10646:2017 (5th ed.) Amendment 2.0" (PDF). p. 16.
  5. McGowan, Rick (2017-05-03), "Feedback on L2/17-091 and small kana", L2/17-105: Comments on Public Review Issues (Jan 18 - May 01, 2017)
  6. "L2/17-091: Japanese National Body Contribution on Small Kana Characters" (PDF). 2017-04-07.
  7. "BabelStone Han". Babelstone Fonts. 15 March 2024. Retrieved 28 March 2024. Small Kana Extension - 1B130..1B16F - 9 out of 9 characters - Full-width
  8. "TrueType font にしき的フォント『 Nishiki-teki 』Version 3.99t (2024-03-26)" (in Japanese). Umihotaru. 26 March 2024. Retrieved 28 March 2024.