Unicode® 6.0.0

Released: 2010 October 11 (Announcement)

Version 6.0.0 has been superseded by the latest version of the Unicode Standard.

Unicode 6.0.0 is a major version of the Unicode Standard. This page summarizes the important changes for the Unicode Standard, Version 6.0.0. In the discussion below, shortened references to "Unicode 6.0" or "Version 6.0" specifically refer to Version 6.0.0.

The Unicode Standard, Version 6.0 is the first major version of the Unicode Standard to be published solely in online format.

Version 6.0:

adds 2,088 characters, including over 1,000 additional symbols—chief among them the additional emoji symbols, which are especially important for mobile phones the new official Indian currency symbol: the Indian Rupee Sign 222 additional CJK Unified Ideographs in common use in China, Taiwan, and Japan 603 additional characters for African language support, including extensions to the Tifinagh, Ethiopic, and Bamum scripts three additional scripts: Mandaic, Batak, and Brahmi

adds new properties and data files a data file, EmojiSources.txt, which maps the emoji symbols to their original Japanese telco source sets two provisional properties for support of Indic scripts: IndicMatraCategory and IndicSyllabicCategory provisional script extension data for use in segmentation, regular expressions, and spoof detection

corrects character properties for existing characters property value updates to 36 non-CJK characters numerous improvements to provisional properties for CJK Unified Ideographs format updates for many normative IRG source tags, to better synchronize with ISO/IEC 10646 (see UAX #38, Unicode Han Database, for details)

amends the text of the Standard many changes to the core specification, listed in D. Textual Changes and Character Additions small clarifications of the conformance clauses in UAX #9, The Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm, but no significant changes to conformance requirements major editorial revisions of UAX #44, Unicode Character Database, and UAX #15, Unicode Normalization Forms, but no significant changes to conformance requirements

provides format improvements, including charts for CJK Compatibility Ideographs are now laid out in a multicolumn format showing sources, comparable to the structure of the charts for the CJK Unified Ideographs



Two other important Unicode specifications are maintained in synchrony with the Unicode Standard, and have updates for Version 6.0:

This version of the Unicode Standard is synchronized with the Second Edition of 10646: ISO/IEC 10646:2011. That Second Edition represents the republication of ISO/IEC 10646:2003 plus the rolled-up content additions from Amendments 1 through 8. The repertoire for Unicode Version 6.0 includes all the characters of the Second Edition, plus one additional character U+20B9 INDIAN RUPEE SIGN, which is still in the process of addition to 10646.

Version 6.0 of the Unicode Standard consists of the core specification, the delta and archival code charts for this version, the Unicode Standard Annexes, and the Unicode Character Database (UCD).

The core specification gives the general principles, requirements for conformance, and guidelines for implementers. The code charts show representative glyphs for all the Unicode characters. The Unicode Standard Annexes supply detailed normative information about particular aspects of the standard. The Unicode Character Database supplies normative and informative data for implementers to allow them to implement the Unicode Standard.

Version 6.0.0 of the Unicode Standard should be referenced as:

The Unicode Consortium. The Unicode Standard, Version 6.0.0, (Mountain View, CA: The Unicode Consortium, 2011. ISBN 978-1-936213-01-6)

http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode6.0.0/

A complete specification of the contributory files for Unicode 6.0 is found on the page Components for 6.0.0.That page also provides the recommended reference format for Unicode Standard Annexes.

The navigation bar on the left of this page provides links to both the core specification as a single file, as well as to individual chapters, and the appendices. Also provided are links to the code charts, the radical-stroke indices to CJK ideographs, the Unicode Standard Annexes and the data files for Version 6.0 of the Unicode Character Database.

Several sets of code charts are available. They serve different purposes:

The latest set of code charts for the Unicode Standard are available online. Those charts are always the most current code charts available, and may be updated at any time. The charts are organized by scripts and blocks for easy reference. An online index by character name is also provided.

For Unicode 6.0.0 in particular two additional sets of code chart pages are provided:

A set of delta code charts showing only the new blocks for Unicode 6.0.0 and any existing blocks for which new characters were added in Unicode 6.0.0. All new characters are visually highlighted in those charts.

A set of archival code charts that represent the entire set of characters, names and representative glyphs at the time of publication of Unicode 6.0.0.

The delta and archival code charts are a stable part of this release of the Unicode Standard. They will never be updated.

Errata incorporated into Unicode 6.0 are listed by date in a separate table. For corrigenda and errata after the release of Unicode 6.0, see the list of current Updates and Errata.

In the Unicode 6.0 timeframe, the Property Alias Uniqueness stability policy has been updated, to make it clear that that uniqueness is defined specifically by the UAX44-LM3 matching rule, rather than by a generic reference to all of the UAX #44 matching rules. Also, the UAX44-LM3 matching rule has been clarified regarding the status of any property aliases beginning with the sequence of characters "is" (or "Is" or "IS"), because of the prevalence of implementations of Unicode character properties or property values with APIs prefixed with "Is", as for example IsNumeric() for the Unicode Numeric property, and so on.

Another Property Value Stability constraint has been added, to make it clear that all decimal digits (Numeric_Type=Decimal) only occur in contiguous ranges of 10 characters, with ascending numeric values from 0 to 9.

Note: The Unicode Character Encoding Stability Policy restricts possible future changes to the Unicode Standard, but is not formally a part of the standard itself.

2,088 new character assignments were made to the Unicode Standard, Version 6.0

Character Assignment Overview

230 characters have been added to the BMP, while 1,858 characters have been added in the supplementary planes. For the first time in the history of the Unicode Standard, the majority of the regular encoded characters (graphic and format) are not in the BMP.

Most character additions are in new blocks, but there are also character additions to a number of existing blocks.

The following table shows the allocation of code points in Unicode 6.0, by character type. It highlights the numbers for the BMP and the supplementary planes separately. For more information on the specific characters newly assigned in Unicode 6.0, see the file DerivedAge.txt in the Unicode Character Database. For more details regarding character counts, see Appendix D, Changes from Previous Versions.

Type BMP Supplementary Total Graphic 54,496 54,746 109,242 Format* 36 106 142 Control 65 65 Private Use 6,400 131,068 137,468 Surrogate 2,048 2,048 Noncharacter 34 32 66 Reserved 2,457 862,624 865,081

* Format characters include U+2028 LINE SEPARATOR and U+2029 PARAGRAPH SEPARATOR.

New Blocks

The newly-defined blocks in Version 6.0 are:

0840..085F Mandaic 1BC0..1BFF Batak AB00..AB2F Ethiopic Extended-A 11000..1107F Brahmi 16800..16A3F Bamum Supplement 1B000..1B0FF Kana Supplement 1F0A0..1F0FF Playing Cards 1F300..1F5FF Miscellaneous Symbols And Pictographs 1F600..1F64F Emoticons 1F680..1F6FF Transport And Map Symbols 1F700..1F77F Alchemical Symbols 2B740..2B81F CJK Unified Ideographs Extension D

Text Changes and Additions

Numbers indicate the chapter or section in the Unicode 6.0 core specification where there are some significant changes or additions. This list is not exhaustive. Select changes for Chapter 3, Conformance, are listed separately under E. Conformance Changes. Many figures have been updated or added throughout.

Preface: Rewrote extensively

5.17: Updated shift/rotate in UTF8/UTF16 binary order algorithm

6.2: Documented dandas

7.1: Added new text on Latvian (and Sorbian) letters in Latin Extended-D

8.2: Updates to Arabic, including Arabic pedagogical symbols (nuktas) and Kashmiri additions for Arabic

9: Various updates to Indic, including additions to tables of vowel letters

9.1: Updates to Devanagari, including Kashmiri additions for Devanagari

9.5: Added text on Oriya fraction signs

9.6: Improvements to Tamil

9.9: Added text on new Malayalam characters, including Dot Reph

10.2: Various updates to Tibetan

11.13: Various updates to Balinese

11.14: Various updates to Javanese

12.1: Various updates to Han; added new section on CJK Extension D

12.4: Added new subsection on Kana Supplement in Hiragana and Katakana

12.6: Various updates to Hangul

13.1: New text on Ethiopic additions in Ethiopic Extended-A

13.4: Added new text on Tifinagh bi-consonants

13.7: Added new text for Bamum Supplement

15: New text on Emoji affecting the description of the following code ranges: 2300-23FF Miscellaneous Technical 2700-27BF Dingbats 1F0A0-1F0FF Playing Cards 1F100-1F1FF Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement 1F300-1F5FF Miscellaneous Symbols And Pictographs 1F600-1F64F Emoticons 1F680-1F6FF Transport And Map symbols

15.1: New text on U+20B9 INDIAN RUPEE SIGN

15.8: New subsection on Alchemical Symbols

16.8: Updates regarding annotation characters and bidi

17.2: Updated to note the new presentation format for compatibility ideographs

Appendices and Back Matter: various updates

Han Radical-Stroke Index now online only; introductory material moved to chapter 12

There are several changes to conformance requirements in Unicode 6.0 that impact implementations. The most important of these are:

Clarification of the explanatory text of D92 in Section 3.9 regarding maximal subpart and addition of an example table with subrange restrictions.

Clarification that the star operator used in the regex for Final_Sigma in Table 3-15 is "greedy" and that Cased and Case_Ignorable properties are not disjoint.

Update of D136 in Section 3.13 to highlight that Case_Ignorable is intended only for use in the specification of Table 3-15 in the Standard.

Rewrite of the definitions and descriptions for caseless matching.

Addition of text in Chapter 3 after C4 to clarify the implications of conformance to Unicode semantics, regarding what other parts of the Standard have normative status.

The detailed listing of all changes to the contributory data files of the Unicode Character Database for Version 6.0 can be found in UAX #44, Unicode Character Database. The changes listed there include a number of important property revisions to existing characters that will affect implementations.

A general category change to two Kannada characters (U+0CF1, U+0CF2), which has the effect of making them newly eligible for inclusion in identifiers

A general category change to one New Tai Lue numeric character (U+19DA), which would have the effect of disqualifying it from inclusion in identifiers unless grandfathering measures are in place for the defining identifier syntax

Changes to ten characters affecting the determination of script runs

The formal deprecation of one Arabic character

Reversal of the default grapheme cluster boundary determination for Thai and Lao to the behavior specified in Unicode 5.0

Addition of the EmojiSources.txt data file, detailing source mapping information for the emoji characters

Addition of the provisional ScriptExtensions.txt data file, providing information about use of certain characters with multiple scripts

Addition of new provisional properties related to the structure of syllables in Indic scripts

Deprecation of several derived properties related to Unicode normalization

Improvement of the LineBreakTest.txt and BidiTest.txt files

In Version 6.0, many of the Unicode Standard Annexes have had significant revisions. The most important of these changes are listed below. For the full details of all changes, see the Modifications section of each UAX, linked directly from the following list of UAXes.