Unicode 13.0.0

Unicode® 13.0.0

2020 March 10 (Announcement)

This page summarizes the important changes for the Unicode Standard, Version 13.0.0. This version supersedes all previous versions of the Unicode Standard.

A.

B.

C.Stability Policy Update

D.Textual Changes and Character Additions

E.

F.Changes in the Unicode Character Database

G.Changes in the Unicode Standard Annexes

H.Changes in Synchronized Unicode Technical Standards

M.Implications for Migration

A. Summary

Unicode 13.0 adds 5,930 characters, for a total of 143,859 characters. These additions include, for a total of 154 scripts, as well as 55 new emoji characters.

The new scripts and characters in Version 13.0 add support for lesser-used languages and unique written requirements worldwide, including numerous symbols additions. Funds from theAdopt-a-Character program provided support for some of these additions. The new scripts and characters include:

• Yezidi, historically used in Iraq and Georgia for liturgical purposes, with some modern revival of usage
• Chorasmian, historically used in Central Asia across Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan to write an extinct Eastern Iranian language
• Dives Akuru, historically used in the Maldives until the 20th century
• Khitan Small Script, historically used in northern China
• Arabic script additions used to write Hausa, Wolof, and other languages in Africa, and other additions used to write Hindko and Punjabi in Pakistan
• A character fors Syloti Nagri in South Asia
• Bopomofo additions used for Cantonese

Popular symbol additions:

• 55 emoji characters. For complete statistics regarding all emoji as of Unicode 13.0, see Emoji Counts. For more information about emoji additions in version 13.0, including new emoji ZWJ sequences and emoji modifier sequences, see  Emoji Recently Added, v13.0 .
• Creative Commons license symbols that are used to describe functions, permissions, and concepts related to intellectual property that have extensive use on the web

Other symbol additions include:

• Two Vietnamese reading marks that mark ideographs as having a distinct, colloquial reading
• 214 graphic characters that provide compatibility with various home computers from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s and with early teletext broadcasting standards

Support for CJK unified ideographs was enhanced in Version 13.0, by the addition of Extension G, which is the first block to be encoded in Plane 3, as well as by significant corrections and improvements to the Unihan database. Changes to the Unihan database include updated regular expressions for many properties, the addition of several new properties, and the removal of three obsolete provisional properties. See UAX #38, Unicode Han Database (Unihan) for more information on the updates.

Additional support for lesser-used languages and scholarly work was extended, including:

• A character used in Sinhala to write Sanskrit

Important chart font updates, including:

• An update to the code charts for the Adlam script, now using the Ebrima font. That font has an improved design and has gained widespread acceptance in the user community.
• A completely updated font for the CJK Radicals Supplement and the Kangxi Radicals blocks. This font is also used to show the radicals in the CJK unified ideographs code charts, as well as in the radical-stroke indexes.

Synchronization

Several other important Unicode specifications have been updated for Version 13.0. The following four Unicode Technical Standards are versioned in synchrony with the Unicode Standard, because their data files cover the same repertoire. All have been updated to Version 13.0:

• UTS #10, Unicode Collation Algorithm — sorting Unicode text
• UTS #39, Unicode Security Mechanisms — reducing Unicode spoofing
• UTS #46, Unicode IDNA Compatibility Processing — compatible processing of non-ASCII URLs
• UTS #51, Unicode Emoji — emoji-related data and behavior

Some of the changes in Version 13.0 and associated Unicode Technical Standards may require modifications to implementations. For more information, see the migration and modification sections of UTS #10, UTS #39, UTS #46, and UTS #51.

This version of the Unicode Standard is also synchronized with ISO/IEC 10646:2020, sixth edition.

See Sections D through H below for additional details regarding the changes in this version of the Unicode Standard, its associated annexes, and the other synchronized Unicode specifications.

B. Technical Overview

Version 13.0 of the Unicode Standard consists of:

• The core specification
• The code charts (delta and archival) for this version
• The Unicode Standard Annexes
• 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.

Core Specification

The core specification is available as a single pdf for viewing . (14 MB) Links are also available in the navigation bar on the left of this page to accessandof the core specification.

Code Charts

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

• The latest set of code charts for the Unicode Standard is 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 13.0.0 in particular two additional sets of code chart pages are provided:

• A set of delta code charts showing the new blocks and any blocks in which characters were added for Unicode 13.0.0. The new characters are visually highlighted in the charts.
• A set of archival code charts that represents the entire set of characters, names and representative glyphs at the time of publication of Unicode 13.0.0.

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

Unicode Standard Annexes

Links to the individualUnicode Standard Annexesare available in the navigation bar on the left of this page. The list of significant changes in the content of the Unicode Standard Annexes for Version 13.0 can be found inbelow.

Unicode Character Database

Data files for Version 13.0 of the Unicode Character Database are available. The ReadMe.txt in that directory provides a roadmap to the functions of the various subdirectories.Zipped versions of the UCD for bulk download are available, as well.

Version References

Version 13.0.0 of the Unicode Standard should be referenced as:

The terms “Version 13.0” or “Unicode 13.0” are abbreviations for the full version reference, Version 13.0.0.

The citation and permalink for the latest published version of the Unicode Standard is:

A complete specification of the contributory files for Unicode 13.0 is found on the page Components for 13.0.0 . That page also provides the recommended reference format for Unicode Standard Annexes. For examples of how to cite particular portions of the Unicode Standard, see also theReference Examples.

Errata

Errata incorporated into Unicode 13.0 are listed by date in aseparate table. For corrigenda and errata after the release of Unicode 13.0, see the list of currentUpdates and Errata.

C. Stability Policy Update

There were no significant changes to the Stability Policy of the core specification between Unicode 12.1 and Unicode 13.0.

D. Textual Changes and Character Additions

Four new scripts were added with accompanying new block descriptions:

Changes in the Unicode Standard Annexes are listed in.

Character Assignment Overview

5,930 characters have been added. Most character additions are in new blocks, but there are also character additions to a number of existing blocks. For details, seedelta code charts.

E. Conformance Changes

There are no significant new conformance requirements in Unicode 13.0.

F. Changes in the Unicode Character Database

The detailed listing of all changes to the contributory data files of the Unicode Character Database for Version 13.0 can be found in UAX #44, Unicode Character Database . The changes listed there include character additions and property revisions to existing characters that will affect implementations. Some of the important impacts on implementations migrating from earlier versions of the standard are highlighted in.

G. Changes in the Unicode Standard Annexes

In Version 13.0, some 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.

H. Changes in Synchronized Unicode Technical Standards

There are also significant revisions in the Unicode Technical Standards whose versions are synchronized with the Unicode Standard. The most important of these changes are listed below. For the full details of all changes, see the Modifications section of each UTS, linked directly from the following list of UTSes.

M. Implications for Migration

There are a significant number of changes in Unicode 13.0 which may impact implementations upgrading to Version 13.0 from earlier versions of the standard. The most important of these are listed and explained here, to help focus on the issues most likely to cause unexpected trouble during upgrades.

Script-related Changes

Four new scripts have been added in Unicode 13.0.0. Some of these scripts have particular attributes which may cause issues for implementations. The more important of these attributes are summarized here.

• Dives Akuru is a complex script of the Indic type.
• Khitan Small Script has rules for stacking characters into phonogram clusters. One new, Khitan-specific format control character is used to distinguish between two patterns for phonogram clusters. The Khitan Small Script is traditionally laid out in vertical orientation.

General Character Property Changes

There are a number of issues related to particular character properties:

• A new Canonical_Combining_Class value of ccc=6 has been added for two Vietnamese Han reading marks. Implementations should be checked to ensure that their handling of combining class values does not fail when encountering this new value.
• A new value of the Indic_Positional_Category property has been added: Top_And_Bottom_And_Left.

Numeric Property Issues

• A new set of decimal digits has been added for the Dives Akuru script.
• A new set of compatibility decimal digits has been added, for segmented (LED-like) digit display support for legacy computer graphic symbol sets.

CJK/Unihan Changes

• Three obsolete provisional properties have been removed: kRSJapanese, kRSKanWa, kRSKorean.
• Two new normative source properties have been added: kIRG_SSource, kIRG_UKSource, with values split off from kIRG_USource. These properties involve data for the CJK charts and have some impact on the distribution of sources in those charts.
• A new informative property has been added: kUnihanCore2020. This is intended as a more useful indicator of the basic Han set to support, superseding the function of kIICore.
• One informative property, kTotalStrokes, has been moved from the Unihan subfile Unihan_DictionaryLikeData.txt to the subfile Unihan_IRGSources.txt. This change may impact implementations that parse for that particular Unihan property value.
• There are large changes in the values for kSimplifiedVariant, kTraditionalVariant, and kZVariant, and many additions for the new kSpoofingVariant property.

See UAX #38 , Unicode Han Database (Unihan) for further details on these changes, especially Section 4.2, Listing by Date of Addition to the Unicode Standard , and Section 4.3, Listing by Location within Unihan.zip . UAX #38 also has updated regex values for numerous Unihan properties.

• There are multiple new ideographic ranges defined for Version 13.0.0, as well as changes to the end of several existing CJK unified ideograph ranges. Because implementations often hard-code ideographic ranges to short-cut lookups and reduce table sizes, it is especially important that implementers pay close attention to the implications of range changes for Version 13.0.0. See Blocks.txt for details.
• There is a second range defined for Tangut ideographs now, for the new Tangut Supplement block. This means that Tangut is the second ideographic script (after Han) which has multiple ranges defined in multiple blocks. The Tangut Supplement block, like the main Tangut block, has character names defined by a rule which is based on the code point: TANGUT IDEOGRAPH-.
• The Khitan Small Script is a new ideographic script, encoded for the first time in Version 13.0.0. This is the fourth ideographic script (after Han, Tangut, and Nushu) to use the range notation in UnicodeData.txt. This script also has character names defined by a rule which is based on the code point: KHITAN SMALL SCRIPT CHARACTER-.
• Three existing CJK unified ideographic blocks have small extensions added at the end of the blocks. These extensions increment the end ranges by a few code points for each block: 13 code points for the URO, 10 code points for Extension A, and 7 code points for Extension B. Implementers expect these kinds of extension for the URO, because they have happened for multiple versions of the standard. However, these are the very first such small range additions for both Extension A and Extension B. Note that the addition for Extension A also happens to completely fill the CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A block. See Section 4.4, Listing of Characters Covered by the Unihan Database in UAX #38 for the version history of all these small CJK unified ideograph additions inside existing blocks.
• Finally, the new CJK Unified Ideogaphs Extension G block is the first block of assigned characters in Plane 3, the Tertiary Ideographic Plane. Implementers should check their assumptions about valid ranges past U+2FFFF, to ensure that code points in the range U+30000..U+3134A are correctly handled.