Unicode Consortium Announces Version 11.0 and Version 12.0 Cover Designs

The Unicode Consortium is pleased to announce the design selected for the cover of the forthcoming print-on-demand publication of The Unicode Standard, Version 11.0. The Unicode Consortium issued an open call for artists and designers to submit cover design proposals. An independent panel reviewed all submitted designs. Because of the accelerated release schedule for Version 12.0 (March 2019), the design for the print-on-demand publication of The Unicode Standard, Version 12.0 was also selected at this time.


The cover for Version 11.0 is an original design by Joyce S. Lee, a graduate student in the UC Berkeley School of Information. Her artwork was inspired by the well-known early 20th-century Bauhaus design school. She explains, “I see numerous parallels between the Bauhaus and the Unicode Consortium, including an intersection of workmanship and technological reproduction, a spirit of collaboration, as well as a widespread cultural influence. With this Bauhaus inspired cover, I thus aim to represent the Unicode Standard as a form of instructional reference for technologists around the world.”


Cover artwork for Version 12.0 was created by Monica Tang, a computer science student at UC Berkeley. Her design was inspired by the simplicity of the geometric shapes that comprise the diversity of characters and symbols represented in the Unicode Standard. She notes, “Incorporating a variety of shapes and colors into a patterned design, I seek to convey the sheer breadth of the languages covered in the Unicode Standard as well as a sense of commonality.”

Runner-up designs by Feixiong “Hasutai” Liu and Maurice Meilleur were also selected. Hasutai is the founder and chief designer of Sir Sebsihiyan Sibe-Manchu Culture Center. Maurice Meilleur is Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Appalachian State University.

Hasutai:

Maurice Meilleur:

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Adopt-a-Character

Over 130,000 characters are available for adoption, to help the Unicode Consortium’s work on digitally disadvantaged languages.

Announcing The Unicode® Standard, Version 11.0

Version 11.0 of the Unicode Standard is now available, both the core specification and data files. Version 11.0 adds 684 characters, for a total of 137,374 characters. These additions include seven new scripts, for a total of 146 scripts, as well as 145 new emoji.

The new scripts and characters in Version 11.0 add support for lesser-used languages and unique written requirements worldwide, including:

• Georgian Mtavruli capital letters, newly added to support modern casing practices
• Hanifi Rohingya, used to write the modern Rohingya language in Southeast Asia
• Medefaidrin, used for modern liturgical purposes in Africa
• Mazahua, a Mesoamerican language recognized by law in Mexico
• Mayan numerals used in printed materials in Central America
• Historic Sanskrit, Gurmukhi, and the Buryats
• Five urgently needed CJK unified ideographs: three for chemical names and two for Japan's government administration

Popular symbol additions:

• Copyleft symbol
• Half stars for rating systems
• More astrological symbols
• Xiangqi Chinese chess symbols
• New emoji characters including:

For the full list of emoji characters, see emoji additions for Unicode 11.0, and Emoji Counts. For a detailed description of support for emoji characters by the Unicode Standard, see UTS #51, Unicode Emoji. Version 11.0 also includes other improvements for emoji handling:

• a mechanism to request the glyph direction for emoji
• descriptions of the four new emoji hair components
• descriptions of gender neutral emoji
• simplified statements of emoji-related rules for grapheme cluster boundaries and for word boundaries.

Three other important Unicode specifications have been updated for Version 11.0:

• 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

Unicode 11.0 includes a number of changes. Some of the Unicode Standard Annexes have modifications, often in coordination with changes to character properties. In particular, there are changes to:

• UAX #14, Unicode Linebreaking Algorithm
• UAX #29, Unicode Text Segmentation
• UAX #31, Unicode Identifier and Pattern Syntax

The Unicode Standard is the foundation for all modern software and communications around the world, including all modern operating systems, browsers, laptops, and smart phones—plus the Internet and Web (URLs, HTML, XML, CSS, JSON, etc.). The Unicode Standard, its associated standards, and data form the foundation for CLDR and ICU releases.

Adopt-a-Character

All the new characters including the new emoji are now available for adoption to help the Unicode Consortium’s work on digitally disadvantaged languages.

Unicode 11.0 Beta Review

The beta review period for Unicode 11.0 has started. The Unicode Standard is the foundation for all modern software and communications around the world, including all modern operating systems, browsers, laptops, and smart phones—plus the Internet and Web (URLs, HTML, XML, CSS, JSON, etc.). The Unicode Standard, its associated standards, and data form the foundation for CLDR and ICU releases. Thus it is important to ensure a smooth transition to each new version of the standard.

Unicode 11.0 includes a number of changes. Some of the Unicode Standard Annexes have modifications for Unicode 11.0, often in coordination with changes to character properties. In particular, there are major changes to UAX #29, Unicode Text Segmentation. Seven new scripts have been added in Unicode 11.0, including Hanifi Rohingya. A major adjustment has been made to the Georgian script, with the introduction of uppercase Georgian letters. There are also 66 additional emoji characters.

Please review the documentation, adjust your code, test the data files, and report errors and other issues to the Unicode Consortium by April 23, 2018. Feedback instructions are on the beta page.

See http://unicode.org/versions/beta-11.0.0.html for more information about testing the 11.0.0 beta.

See http://unicode.org/versions/Unicode11.0.0/ for the current draft summary of Unicode 11.0.0.

About the Unicode Consortium

The Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization founded to develop, extend and promote use of the Unicode Standard and related globalization standards.

The membership of the consortium represents a broad spectrum of corporations and organizations, many in the computer and information processing industry. Members include: Adobe, Apple, Emojipedia, Facebook, Google, Government of Bangladesh, Government of India, Huawei, IBM, Microsoft, Monotype Imaging, Netflix, Sultanate of Oman MARA, Oracle, SAP, Shopify, Symantec, Tamil Virtual University, The University of California (Berkeley), plus well over a hundred Associate, Liaison, and Individual members. For a complete member list go to http://www.unicode.org/consortium/members.html.

Over 130,000 characters are available for adoption, to help the Unicode Consortium’s work on digitally disadvantaged languages.