Unicode CLDR v45 Alpha available for testing

The Unicode CLDR v45 Alpha is now available for integration testing. 

CLDR provides key building blocks for software to support the world's languages (dates, times, numbers, sort-order, etc.) For example, all major browsers and all modern mobile phones use CLDR for language support. (See Who uses CLDR?)

Via the online Survey Tool, contributors supply data for their languages — data that is widely used to support much of the world’s software. This data is also a factor in determining which languages are supported on mobile phones and computer operating systems.

The alpha has already been integrated into the development version of ICU. We would especially appreciate feedback from non-ICU consumers of CLDR data and on Migration issues. Feedback can be filed at CLDR Tickets.

CLDR 45 is a closed release with no submission period, focusing on just a few areas:

MessageFormat 2.0 Tech Preview

Software needs to construct messages that incorporate various pieces of information. The complexities of the world's languages make this challenging. The goal for MessageFormat 2.0  is to allow developers and translators to create natural-sounding, grammatically-correct, user interfaces that can appear in any language and support the needs of diverse cultures.

The new MessageFormat defines the data model, syntax, processing, and conformance requirements for the next generation of dynamic messages. It is intended for adoption by programming languages, software libraries, and software localization tooling. It enables the integration of internationalization APIs (such as date or number formats), and grammatical matching (such as plurals or genders). It is extensible, allowing software developers to create formatting or message selection logic that add on to the core capabilities. Its data model provides a means of representing existing syntaxes, thus enabling gradual adoption by users of older formatting systems.

See also:

• UTW {�} MessageFormat v2 (November 7, 2023)

• Message Format Virtual Open House (February 20, 2024) 

Keyboard 3.0 stable version

Keyboard support for digitally disadvantaged languages is often lacking or inconsistent between platforms. The updated LDML Keyboard 3.0 format specifies an interchange format for keyboard data. This will allow keyboard authors to create a single mapping file for their language, which implementations can use to provide that language’s keyboard mapping on their own platform. This format allows both physical and virtual (that is, on-screen or touch) keyboard layouts for a language to be defined in a single file.

See also:

• CLDR, Beyond Locale Data (June 22, 2023)

Tooling changes

Many tooling changes are difficult to accommodate in a data-submission release, including performance work and UI improvements. The changes in v45 provide faster turn-around for linguists and higher data quality. They are targeted at the v46 submission period, starting in May, 2024.

For more information

See the draft CLDR v45 release page, which has information on accessing the data, reviewing charts of the changes, and — importantly — Migration issues.

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The Unicode CLDR v43 Alpha is now available for integration testing

CLDR provides key building blocks for software to support the world's languages (dates, times, numbers, sort-order, etc.). For example, all major browsers and all modern mobile phones use CLDR for language support. (See Who uses CLDR?)

Via the online Survey Tool, contributors supply data for their languages — data that is widely used to support much of the world’s software. This data is also a factor in determining which languages are supported on mobile phones and computer operating systems.

The Alpha has already been integrated into the development version of ICU. We would especially appreciate feedback from non-ICU consumers of CLDR data and on Migration issues. Feedback can be filed at CLDR Tickets.

Alpha means that the main data and charts are available for review, but the specification, JSON data, and other components are not yet ready for review. Data may change if release-blocking bugs are found. The planned schedule is:

• 2023 Mar 15, Wed — public Beta (data)
• 2023 Mar 29, Wed — public Beta2 (data & spec)
• 2023 Apr 12, Wed — Release

CLDR 43 is a limited-submission release, focusing on just a few areas:

1. Formatting Person Names
   • Completing the data for formatting person names, allowing it to advance out of “tech preview”. For more information on the benefits of this feature, see Background.
2. Adding substantially to the LikelySubtags data
   • This is used to find the likely writing system and country for a given language, used in normalizing locale identifiers and inheritance.
     
   • The data has been contributed by SIL.
3. Other data updates
   • Alternate names for Turkey / Türkiye
   • Name for the new timezone Ciudad Juárez
4. Structure
   • Adding some structure and data needed for ICU4X & JavaScript, for calendar eras and parentLocales.
   • Cleanup of the inheritance structure in CLDR
5. Collation & Searching
   • Treat various quote marks as equivalent at a Primary strength, also including Geresh and Gershayim.

To find out more about these and other changes, see the draft CLDR v43 release page, which has information on accessing the date, reviewing charts of the changes, and — importantly — Migration issues.

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Unicode CLDR v42 Alpha available for testing

The Unicode CLDR v42 Alpha is now available for integration testing.

CLDR provides key building blocks for software to support the world's languages (dates, times, numbers, sort-order, etc.) For example, all major browsers and all modern mobile phones use CLDR for language support. (See Who uses CLDR?)

Via the online Survey Tool, contributors supply data for their languages — data that is widely used to support much of the world’s software. This data is also a factor in determining which languages are supported on mobile phones and computer operating systems.

The alpha has already been integrated into the development version of ICU. We would especially appreciate feedback from non-ICU consumers of CLDR data and on Migration issues. Feedback can be filed at CLDR Tickets.

Alpha means that the main data and charts are available for review, but the specification, JSON data, and other components are not yet ready for review. Some data may change if showstopper bugs are found. The planned schedule is:

• Sep 14 — Beta (data)
• Sep 28 — Beta2 (spec)
• Oct 19 — Release

In CLDR 42, the focus is on:

1. Locale coverage. The following locales now have higher coverage levels:
   
   1. Modern: Igbo (ig), yo (Yoruba)
   2. Moderate: Chuvash (cv), Xhosa (xh)
   3. Basic: Haryanvi (bgc), Bhojpuri (bho), Rajasthani (raj), Tigrinya (ti)
2. Formatting Person Names. Added data and structure for formatting people's names. For more information on why this feature is being added and what it does, see Background.
3. Emoji 15.0 Support. Added short names, keywords, and sort-order for the new Unicode 15.0 emoji.
4. Coverage, Phase 2. Added additional language names and other items to the Modern coverage level, for more consistency (and utility) across platforms.
5. Unicode 15.0 additions. Made the regular additions and changes for a new release of Unicode, including names for new scripts, collation data for Han characters, etc.

There are many other changes: to find out more, see the draft CLDR v42 release page, which has information on accessing the date, reviewing charts of the changes, and — importantly — Migration issues.

In version 42, the following levels were reached:

Level	Languages	Locales*	Notes
Modern	94	366	Suitable for full UI internationalization
Afrikaans‎, ‎… Čeština‎, ‎… Dansk‎, ‎… Eesti‎, ‎… Filipino‎, ‎… Gaeilge‎, ‎… Hrvatski‎, ‎Indonesia‎, ‎… Jawa‎, ‎Kiswahili‎, ‎Latviešu‎, ‎… Magyar‎, ‎…Nederlands‎, ‎… O‘zbek‎, Polski‎, ‎… Română‎, ‎Slovenčina‎, ‎… Tiếng Việt‎, ‎… Ελληνικά‎, Беларуская‎, ‎… ‎ᏣᎳᎩ‎, ‎ Ქართული‎, ‎Հայերեն‎, ‎עברית‎, ‎اردو‎, … አማርኛ‎, ‎नेपाली‎, … ‎অসমীয়া‎, ‎বাংলা‎, ‎ਪੰਜਾਬੀ‎, ‎ગુજરાતી‎, ‎ଓଡ଼ିଆ‎, தமிழ்‎, ‎తెలుగు‎, ‎ಕನ್ನಡ‎, ‎മലയാളം‎, ‎සිංහල‎, ‎ไทย‎, ‎ລາວ‎, မြန်မာ‎, ‎ខ្មែរ‎, ‎한국어‎, ‎… 日本語‎, ‎…
Moderate	7	11	Suitable for full “document content” internationalization, such as formats in a spreadsheet.
Binisaya, … ‎Èdè Yorùbá, ‎Føroyskt, ‎Igbo, ‎IsiZulu, ‎Kanhgág, ‎Nheẽgatu, ‎Runasimi, ‎Sardu, ‎Shqip, ‎سنڌي, …
Basic	29	43	Suitable for locale selection, such as choice of language in mobile phone settings.
Asturianu, ‎Basa Sunda, ‎Interlingua, ‎Kabuverdianu, ‎Lea Fakatonga, ‎Rumantsch, ‎Te reo Māori, ‎Wolof, ‎Босански (Ћирилица), ‎Татар, ‎Тоҷикӣ, ‎Ўзбекча (Кирил), ‎کٲشُر, ‎कॉशुर (देवनागरी), ‎…, ‎মৈতৈলোন্, ‎ᱥᱟᱱᱛᱟᱲᱤ, ‎粤语 (简体)‎

* Locales are variants for different countries or scripts.

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Over 144,000 characters are available for adoption to help the Unicode Consortium’s work on digitally disadvantaged languages

Unicode CLDR v41 Alpha available for testing

The Unicode CLDR v41 Alpha is now available for testing. The alpha has already been integrated into the development version of ICU. We would especially appreciate feedback from non-ICU consumers of CLDR data. Feedback can be filed at CLDR Tickets.

Alpha means that the main data and charts are available for review, but the specification, JSON data, and other components are not yet ready for review. Some data may change if showstopper bugs are found. The planned schedule is:

• Mar 09 — Beta (data)
• Mar 23 — Beta2 (spec)
• Apr 06 — Release

CLDR v41 is a limited-submission release. Most work was on tooling, with only specified updates to the data, namely Phase 3 of the grammatical units of measurement project. The required grammar data for the Modern coverage level increased, with 40 locales adding an average of 4% new data each. Ukrainian grew the most, by 15.6%.

The tooling changes are targeted at the v42 general submission release. They include a number of features and improvements such as progress meter widgets in the Survey Tool.

Finally, the Basic level has been modified to make it easier to onboard new languages, and easier for implementations to filter locale data based on coverage levels.

The following table shows the number of Languages/Locales in this version. (See the v41 Locale Coverage table for more information.)

Level	Languages	Locales	Notes
Modern	89	361	Suitable for full UI internationalization
Moderate	13	32	Suitable for full “document content” internationalization, such as formats in a spreadsheet.
Basic	22	21	Suitable for locale selection, such as choice of language in mobile phone settings.
Total	124	414	Total of all languages/locales with ≥ Basic coverage.

Beyond the member organizations of the Unicode Consortium, many dedicated communities and individuals regularly contribute to updating their locales, including:

• Modern: Cherokee, Cantonese, Scottish Gaelic, Sorbian (Lower), Sorbian (Upper)
• Moderate: Asturian [nearly Modern], Breton, Faroese, Fulah (Adlam), Kaingang, Nheengatu, Quechua, Sardinian
• Basic: Bosnian (Cyrillic), Interlingua, Kabuverdianu, Māori, Romansh, Tajik, Tatar, Tongan, Uzbek (Cyrillic), Wolof

Unicode CLDR provides key building blocks for software supporting the world’s languages. CLDR data is used by all major software systems (including all mobile phones) for their software internationalization and localization, adapting software to the conventions of different languages.

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Over 144,000 characters are available for adoption to help the Unicode Consortium’s work on digitally disadvantaged languages

Unicode 15.0 Alpha Review

The repertoire for Unicode 15.0 is now open for early review and comment. 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 issues prior to the start of beta review (currently scheduled to start in late May, 2022). Once beta review begins, the repertoire, code points, and character names will all be locked down, and no longer be subject to changes.

Feedback for the alpha review should be reported under PRI #442 using the Unicode contact form by April 5, 2022.

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Over 144,000 characters are available for adoption to help the Unicode Consortium’s work on digitally disadvantaged languages

Unicode CLDR v40 Alpha available for testing

The Unicode CLDR v40 Alpha is now available for testing. The alpha has already been integrated into the development version of ICU. We would especially appreciate feedback from non-ICU consumers of CLDR data. Feedback can be filed at CLDR Tickets.

Alpha means that the main data and charts are available for review, but the specification, JSON data, and other components are not yet ready for review. Some data may change if showstopper bugs are found. The planned schedule is:

• Sep 21 — Beta (data)
• Oct 06 — Beta2 (spec)
• Oct 27 — Release

In CLDR v40, the main focus is on:

• Grammatical features (gender and case) for units of measurement in additional locales
  
  Phase 1 (v39) of grammatical features included just 12 locales (da, de, es, fr, hi, it, nl, no, pl, pt, ru, sv).
  
  Phase 2 (v40) has expanded the number of locales by 29 (am, ar, bn, ca, cs, el, fi, gu, he, hr, hu, hy, is, kn, lt, lv, ml, mr, nb, pa, ro, si, sk, sl, sr, ta, te, uk, ur), but for a narrower set of units.
  
  
• Emoji v14 names and search keywords
• Modernized Survey Tool front end.

There are many other changes: to find out more, see the draft CLDR v40 release page, which has information on accessing the date, reviewing charts of the changes, and necessary migration changes.

Unicode CLDR provides key building blocks for software supporting the world’s languages. CLDR data is used by all major software systems (including all mobile phones) for their software internationalization and localization, adapting software to the conventions of different languages.

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Over 140,000 characters are available for adoption to help the Unicode Consortium’s work on digitally disadvantaged languages

Unicode CLDR v39 Alpha available for testing

The Unicode CLDR v39 Alpha is now available for testing. The alpha has already been integrated into the development version of ICU. While the scope of the changes is small in this cycle, there are some significant migration issues, so we would especially appreciate feedback from non-ICU consumers of CLDR data. Feedback can be filed at CLDR Tickets.

Unicode CLDR provides key building blocks for software supporting the world's languages. CLDR data is used by all major software systems (including all mobile phones) for their software internationalization and localization, adapting software to the conventions of different languages.

CLDR v39 had no submission phase. Instead the focus was on modernizing the Survey Tool software, preparing for data submission in the next release (v40). The data fixes in the release were confined to some global changes that are too difficult to do during a submission cycle, and various other fixes. There was a major change in how Norwegian is handled, in order to align the way that the locale identifiers no, nb, and nn are used. The CLDR Github repo is changing the name of “master” branch to “main” branch. The unit support from the last release was integrated into ICU, and some fixes resulting from that process were made to the measurement unit data. Quite a number of fixes are made to the specification, to clarify text or fix problems in keyboards, measurement units, locale identifiers, and a few other areas.

The public beta (data and specification) is planned for 2021-Mar-24, with the release following on 2021-Apr-07.

To find out more, see the draft CLDR 39 Release Note, which has information on accessing the date, reviewing charts of the changes, and necessary migration changes.

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Over 140,000 characters are available for adoption to help the Unicode Consortium’s work on digitally disadvantaged languages

Unicode 14.0 Alpha Review

The repertoire for Unicode 14.0 is now open for early review and comment. 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 issues prior to the start of beta review (currently scheduled to start in June, 2021). Once beta review begins, the repertoire, code points, and character names will all be locked down, and no longer be subject to changes.

Feedback for the alpha review should be reported under PRI #428 using the Unicode contact form by April 12, 2021.

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Over 140,000 characters are available for adoption to help the Unicode Consortium’s work on digitally disadvantaged languages

Unicode CLDR Locale Data v38 alpha available for testing

The alpha version of Unicode CLDR version 38 is now available for data testing. The final release of v38 is planned for October 22, 2020. If you find any problems with the data, please file a ticket.

Unicode CLDR provides an update to the key building blocks for software supporting the world's languages. CLDR data is used by all major software systems (including all mobile phones) for their software internationalization and localization, adapting software to the conventions of different languages.

CLDR v38 includes:

• Enhancements to existing locale data: adding support for units of measurement in inflected languages (phase 1), adding annotations (names and search keywords) for Unicode symbols that are non-emoji (~400), and annotations for Emoji v13.1.
• New locales added: Dogri and Sanskrit.
• Survey Tool upgrades: substantial performance improvements, plus structured forum entries to improve coordination among translators.

See additional details in the draft CLDR v38 Release note

The overall changes to the data items were:

Added	Deleted	Changed
155,131	33,805	45,895

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Over 140,000 characters are available for adoption to help the Unicode Consortium’s work on digitally disadvantaged languages

Unicode CLDR 35 alpha available for testing

The alpha version of Unicode CLDR 35 is available for testing. The alpha period lasts until the beta release on March 13, which will include updates to the LDML spec. The final release is expected on March 27.

Unicode CLDR 35 provides an update to the key building blocks for software supporting the world's languages. CLDR data is used by all major software systems for their software internationalization and localization, adapting software to the conventions of different languages for such common software tasks.

CLDR 35 included a limited Survey Tool data collection phase, adding approximately 54 thousand new translated fields:

Basic coverage	New languages at Basic coverage: Cebuano (ceb), Hausa (ha), Igbo (ig), Yoruba (yo)
Modern coverage	Languages Somali (so) and Javanese (jv) has additional coverage from Moderate to Modern
Emoji 12.0	Names and annotations (search keywords) for 90+ new emoji; Also includes fixes for previous names & keywords
Collation	Collation updated to Unicode 12.0, including new emoji; Japanese single-character (ligature) era names added to collation and search collation
Measurement units	23 additional units
Date formats	Two additional flexible formats, and 20 new interval formats
Japanese calendar	Updated to Gannen (元年) number format
Region Names	Many names updated to local equivalents of  “North Macedonia” (MK) and “Eswatini” (SZ)

A dot release, version 35.1 is expected in April, with further changes for Japanese calendar.

For details, see Detailed Specification Changes, Detailed Structure Changes, Detailed Data Changes, Growth.

Unicode CLDR 34 alpha available for testing

The alpha version of Unicode CLDR 34 is available for testing. The alpha period lasts until the beta release on September 26, which will include updates to the LDML spec. The final release is expected on October 10.

CLDR 34 provides an update to the key building blocks for software supporting the world's languages. This data is used by all major software systems for their software internationalization and localization, adapting software to the conventions of different languages for such common software tasks.

CLDR 34 included a full Survey Tool data collection phase. Other enhancements include several changes to prepare for the new Japanese calendar era starting 2019-05-01; updated emoji names, annotations, collation and grouping; and other specific fixes. The draft release page at http://cldr.unicode.org/index/downloads/cldr-34 lists the major features, and has pointers to the newest data and charts. It will be fleshed out over the coming weeks with more details, migration issues, known problems, and so on. Particularly useful for review are:

• Delta Charts - the data that changed during the release
• By-Type Charts - a side-by-side comparison of data from different locales
• Annotation Charts - new emoji names and keywords

Please report any problems that you find using a CLDR ticket. We'd also appreciate it if programmatic users of CLDR data download the xml files and do a trial integration to see if any problems arise.

Unicode CLDR 32α available for testing

The alpha version of Unicode CLDR 32 is available for testing. The alpha period lasts until the beta release on September 27, which will include updates to the LDML spec. The final release is expected on October 19.

CLDR 32 provides an update to the key building blocks for software supporting the world's languages. This data is used by all major software systems for their software internationalization and localization, adapting software to the conventions of different languages for such common software tasks.

CLDR 32 included a Survey Tool data collection phase, with a resulting significant increase in data size, especially for emoji names/annotations and geographic subdivision names. Other enhancements include rule-based number formats for additional languages, a new “disjunctive” list style (a, b, or c), and fixes for Chinese collation and transliteration. The draft release page at http://cldr.unicode.org/index/downloads/cldr-32 lists the major features, and has pointers to the newest data and charts. It will be fleshed out over the coming weeks with more details, migration issues, known problems, and so on. Particularly useful for review are:

• Delta Charts - the data that changed during the release
• By-Type Charts - a side-by-side comparison of data from different locales
  
• Annotation Charts - new emoji names and keywords
• Territory Subdivisions
  

Please report any problems that you find using a CLDR ticket. We'd also appreciate it if programmatic users of CLDR data download the xml files and do a trial integration to see if any problems arise.

Unicode Locale Data v31α available for testing

The Alpha version of Unicode CLDR version 31 is available for testing. The beta v31 will contain updates to the LDML spec and should be available on March 1, with the release of v31 planned for March 15.

CLDR 31 provides an update to the key building blocks for software supporting the world's languages. This data is used by all major software systems for their software internationalization and localization, adapting software to the conventions of different languages for such common software tasks.

Aside from the regular updates to codes and data, some of the more noticeable changes are:

• Canonical codes
  • The subdivision codes were changed to consistently use the bcp47 format.
  • The locales in the language-territory population data and the exemplars directory were regularized (dropping likely scripts subtags).
  • The timezone ID for GMT has been split from UTC.
  • There is a new mechanism for identifying hybrid locales, such as Hinglish.
• Subdivisions
  • Names for Scotland, Wales, and England have been added in many languages.
• Emoji 5.0
  • Short names and keywords have been updated for English.
  • Collation (sorting) adds the new 5.0 Emoji characters and sequences, and some fixes for Emoji 4.0 characters and sequences.
• Transforms
  • The Zawgyi→Unicode transform has been improved.
  • Tamil can now be transcribed to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

This release did not have a data-submission cycle, so the changes reflect cleanup and bug fixes. For more details, and important notes for smoothly migrating implementations, see Unicode CLDR Version 31. If you find a problem, please file a ticket.