ISO 15924

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Short description: Defines two sets of codes for a number of writing systems

ISO 15924, Codes for the representation of names of scripts, is an international standard defining codes for writing systems or scripts (a "set of graphic characters used for the written form of one or more languages"). Each script is given both a four-letter code and a numeric code.[1]

Where possible the codes are derived from ISO 639-2, where the name of a script and the name of a language using the script are identical (example: Gujarātī ISO 639 guj, ISO 15924 Gujr). Preference is given to the 639-2 Bibliographical codes, which is different from the otherwise often preferred use of the Terminological codes.[1]

4-letter ISO 15924 codes are incorporated into the IANA Language Subtag Registry for IETF language tags and so can be used in file formats that make use of such language tags. For example, they can be used in HTML and XML to help Web browsers determine which typeface to use for foreign text. This way one could differentiate, for example, between Serbian written in the Cyrillic (sr-Cyrl) or Latin (sr-Latn) script, or mark romanized or transliterated text as such.

Maintenance

ISO appointed the Unicode Consortium as the Registration Authority (RA) for the standard. The RA is responsible for appointing a registrar who works with a Joint Advisory Committee (JAC) in developing and implementing the standard. The registrar from 2004 to 2018 was Michael Everson, and from January 2019 the registrar has been Markus Scherer, a technical director of the Unicode Consortium.[2][3] The JAC consists of six members: one representative of the RA (Markus Scherer), one representative of ISO 639-2 (Randall K. Barry of the Library of Congress), one representative of ISO TC37 (Christian Galinski), one representative of ISO TC46 (Peeter Päll), and two representatives of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 (Rick McGowan and Ken Whistler, both also officers of the Unicode Consortium).[4]

Script codes

Numeric ranges

  • 000–099 Hieroglyphic and cuneiform scripts
  • 100–199 Right-to-left alphabetic scripts
  • 200–299 Left-to-right alphabetic scripts
  • 300–399 Alphasyllabic scripts
  • 400–499 Syllabic scripts
  • 500–599 Ideographic scripts
  • 600–699 Undeciphered scripts
  • 700–799 Shorthands and other notations[5]
  • 800–899 (unassigned)
  • 900–999 Private use, alias, special codes[6]

Special codes

  • Qaaa–Qabx (900–949): 50 Codes reserved for private use (for example, Qaag is used to mark Burmese text encoded for the Zawgyi font)[7]
  • Zsye 993: Emoji
  • Zinh 994: Code for inherited script[lower-alpha 1]
  • Zmth 995: Mathematical notation
  • Zsym 996: Symbols
  • Zxxx 997: Code for unwritten languages
  • Zyyy 998: Code for undetermined script
  • Zzzz 999: Code for uncoded script

Exceptionally reserved codes

Two four-letter codes are reserved at the request of the Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) project:[8]

  • Root: Reserved for the language-neutral base of the CLDR locale tree
  • True: Reserved for the Boolean value "true"

List of codes

This list of codes is from the ISO 15924 standard.[8]

Relations to other standards

The following standards are referred to as indispensable by ISO 15924.

  • ISO 639-2:1998 Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code
  • ISO/IEC 9541-1:1991 Information technology — Font information interchange — Part 1: Architecture
  • ISO/IEC 10646-1:2020 Information technology — Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS)

For definition of font and glyph the standard refers to

  • ISO/IEC 9541-1:1991

Around 160 scripts are defined in Unicode. Through a linkpin called "Property Value Alias", Unicode has made a 1:1 connection between a script defined, and its ISO 15924 standard. See Script (Unicode).

See also

  • List of scripts with no ISO 15924 code

Notes

  1. ↑ According to the Unicode Standard, Annex #24, version 13.0.0 Inherited is the Unicode script property value of "characters that may be used with multiple scripts, and that inherit their script from a preceding base character. These include nonspacing combining marks and enclosing combining marks, as well as U+200C ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER and U+200D ZERO WIDTH JOINER." The value Inherited is described as matching the ISO 15924 code Zinh.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "ISO 15924:2004". http://unicode.org/iso15924/. 
  2. ↑ "ISO 15924 Registration Authority". Unicode Consortium. https://www.unicode.org/iso15924/. 
  3. ↑ "Unicode Directors, Officers and Staff". Unicode Consortium. https://www.unicode.org/consortium/directors.html. 
  4. ↑ "Joint Advisory Committee ISO 15924/RA-JAC". Unicode Consortium. http://unicode.org/iso15924/iso15924jac.html. 
  5. ↑ In July, 2010, Duployan shorthand was assigned code 755, even though the 700-799 range still carried its original designation of (unassigned). Shortly thereafter, Revision 1.1 clarified that codes in the 700s were reserved for "Shorthands and other notations", although that revision is only provisional until it can be confirmed by governing committees.
  6. ↑ "ISO 15924:2004 Information and documentation — Codes for the representation of names of scripts". Unicode Consortium. 2004-01-09. https://www.unicode.org/iso15924/standard/index.html. 
  7. ↑ Davis, Mark (2023-10-25). "Unicode Locale Data Markup Language (LDML)" (in en). https://unicode.org/reports/tr35/#Unicode_Language_and_Locale_Identifiers. "Qaag is a special script code for identifying the non-standard use of Myanmar characters for display with the Zawgyi font. The purpose of the code is to enable migration to standard, interoperable use of Unicode by providing an identifier for Zawgyi for tagging text, applications, input methods, font tables, transformations, and other mechanisms used for migration." 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "ISO 15924:2004 – Codes for the representation of names of scripts". Unicode. 2023. https://www.unicode.org/iso15924/codelists.html. 

External links



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