Updated Thu 5 Apr 2018 • tags mongolian, scriptnotes

This page shows the latest proposed shapes for positional and variant forms of Mongolian characters and what the major fonts currently produce.

This document was updated in September 2020 to show the actual font glyphs produced for the basic Mongolian character set. To see the results, you either have to view the document on a system where those fonts are installed, or you can view the PDF version (without notes). (Due to their font-handling policy, this document cannot be viewed on Safari or Apple devices.)

The highlighting was also changed to reflect differences from the Unicode 12 glyph list (rather than from the DS01 or WG2 list). Unicode 13 removed the mapping of glyphs to contextual and FVS forms, pending further research and work on the Mongolian character model.

Note that the shapes shown here are for use of characters or character sequences that are not part of actual words or text. The latter can introduce additional contextual rules that may override what you see here. Nevertheless, if showing a character alone, with ZWJ/nirugu, and/or with an FVS, there should be a standard result, and that is what this document aims to help with.

There is some confusion about which shapes fonts should produce for Mongolian characters when combined with variation selectors, and sometimes also when not. Most letters have at least one isolated, initial, medial and final shape, but other shapes are produced by contextual factors, such as vowel harmony. Free variation selectors allow you to produce specific shapes regardless of rules in fonts or rendering software.

The other factor in this is what the actual fonts do. Sometimes they follow the Unicode standardised variants list, other times they diverge from it. Occasionally a majority of implementations appear to diverge in the same way, suggesting that the standardised list should be adapted to reality. The joining shapes produced by the fonts in this document are created by using ZWJ, without reference to other potential contextual factors.

Sources: Unicode Code Chart (v12.0) • DS01 (16 Dec) • L2/16-309 (26 Oct)

Detailed information

Background Unicode proposed a list of standardised variant shapes, dating from 27 November 2013, but that list is not complete and contains what are currently viewed by some as errors. A new proposal (L2/14-031) was published on 20 January 2014, which attempted to resolve the current issues. The data in the DS01 columns in this document is derived from significant revisions of that proposal, arrived at through discussion with the major Mongolian font vendors and Mongolian script experts. The document called DS01 captures the results of that work and constitutes the newest set of proposals for Unicode. The differences are being discussed by Mongolian experts on the public-i18n-mongolian list (see the archive). There is also a document log for these discussions. This page also shows the recommendations of a proposal following a WG2 meeting of Mongolian and Chinese experts with Greg Eck in October 2016, that builds on and integrates DS01 with new information. Differences between that proposal and the previous DS01 proposal are highlighted.

How to use the document For each Mongolian script letter, this page shows graphics to indicate the shape of the character in a given context (described in the left column). The graphics are standardised, and do not represent the actual font glyph shape produced by a particular font. Note that the large character in the box above the top left of each table is not a graphic, and the shape of the character shown depends on the font currently in use. Character images are sometimes surrounded by a coloured border or background with the following meanings: magenta in the TUS12 column: a shape is shown, and it doesn't match the shape in either of the WG2 or DS01 columns.

in the TUS12 column: a shape is shown, and it doesn't match the shape in either of the WG2 or DS01 columns. magenta in the WG2 column or the DS01 column: the proposal in L2/16-309 is different from the latest proposal in DS01.

in the WG2 column or the DS01 column: the proposal in L2/16-309 is different from the latest proposal in DS01. orange in the font columns: the shape produced for the font in question in that context doesn't match the Unicode standard. NOTE: blank spaces in a font cell indicate that the font uses the default isolate, initial, medial or final shape, ie. that it does not match the shapes of the proposal columns to the left . (In some cases, however, those default shapes have been explicitly added in these cells, particularly where most of the row is full.)

green in the font columns: although the glyph shape differs from the latest proposal, the glyph choice is thought to be a design decision because the letter is not actually used in a particular position, and the difference is probably not an issue. Columns 2-4 The usage column indicates script usage (x 1 =Mongolian, x 2 =Todo, x 3 =Sibe, x 4 =Manchu); positional glyphs which show no “x” at all are to be understood as undefined (such glyphs at this position are only the recommended form, not a required form). If there is a notes column, it contains brief notes about how a given shape is used. The TUS12 column shows the information in the charts of The Unicode Standard v12.0. The DS01 and WG2 columns The DS01 column shows the proposals in the latest version of the DS01 document, (25 November, 2106) and includes consensus from discussions on public-i18n-mongolian@w3.org on what should be the result of a particular contextual or variant use of a character in the Mongolian script. The column WG2 represents the proposals in L2/16-309, Proposed additions for Mongolian in 5th edition of UCS (26 October, 2016). The font columns The columns to the right of the DS01 column indicate the shapes produced by various fonts. See below for a key to the abbreviations used. Where there are divergences but it is believed that agreement has been reached on a way forward per DS01 by the font vendors, the left-hand column is coloured green and a description of the resolution is given in the notes below the table. Where addition research is needed, the left-hand column is coloured blue. The text column The font of the characters in the right-most column of the table can be set to a font on your system by opening the vertical blue bar at the bottom right of the page. Changing fonts and other display features Click on the vertical blue line at the bottom right of the browser window to reveal or hide a set of option controls. You can change various parameters here, such as the font and font size of mongolian text on the page. When it is open, you can apply a specific font to the text in the right-hand column by selecting it from the top pull-down menu in this control panel. If the font you want to test is not available in the list selector, click on Add a font to these lists (found below the two list selectors in the control panel just mentioned) and enter the name of the font you want to add in the dialog box that appears. The font name will be added to the selection controls. Open the top list selector again, and click on the name of the font to apply it to the text in the right column. (Fonts you add to a list selector only stay on the list for the duration of the session.) In the text column I use U+200D ZERO WIDTH JOINER by default to establish the context for connecting characters. By clicking on the Connectors radio button in the font dialog box, you can change the connector to U+180A MONGOLIAN NIRUGU. The CSS for the text column also attempts to apply vertical text orientation to the characters. In some Firefox the resulting display may clip some glyphs. By clicking on the Direction radio button in the font dialog box, you can change the direction to horizontal. This may resolve the display problem. The switch only works for Firefox and Chrome browsers.