Unicode 15.1 Alpha Review Opens for Feedback

The repertoire for Unicode 15.1 is now open for early review and comment. As a reminder, during alpha review the repertoire is reasonably mature and stable, but is not yet completely locked down. Discussion regarding whether certain characters should be removed from the repertoire for publication is welcome. Character names and code point assignments are reasonably firm, but suggestions for improvement may still be entertained.

This early review is provided so that reviewers may consider the character repertoire and data file issues prior to the start of beta review (currently scheduled to start in May 2023). Once beta review begins, the repertoire, code points, and character names will all be locked down, and no longer be subject to changes.

Notable Changes

Unicode 15.1 adds exactly five characters, for a total of 149,191 characters. The five new characters are Ideographic Description Characters that are used in Ideographic Description Sequences, which represent a mechanism to visually describe the structure of ideographs.

In addition, the code charts for the CJK Unified Ideographs, CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A, and CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B blocks now include representative glyphs and source references for nearly 24,000 KP-source ideographs. Furthermore, the format of the code charts for the CJK Unified Ideographs block was updated to accommodate KP-source ideographs through the addition of a seventh column.

Version 15.1 does not add new emoji characters, however, 118 new RGI emoji ZWJ sequences will be defined.

Feedback for the alpha review should be reported under PRI #473 using the Unicode contact form by April 4, 2023.

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