Basic Latin (Unicode block) explained

Blockname:Basic Latin

C0 Controls and Basic Latin
Rangestart:0000
Rangeend:007F
Symbols:Arabic numerals
Punctuation
Alphabets:English
French
German
Spanish
Vietnamese
1 0 0:128
Controls:33
Sources:ISO/IEC 8859, ISO 646
Note:[1] [2]

The Basic Latin Unicode block,[3] sometimes informally called C0 Controls and Basic Latin,[4] is the first block of the Unicode standard, and the only block which is encoded in one byte in UTF-8. The block contains all the letters and control codes of the ASCII encoding. It ranges from U+0000 to U+007F, contains 128 characters and includes the C0 controls, ASCII punctuation and symbols, ASCII digits, both the uppercase and lowercase of the English alphabet and a control character.

The Basic Latin block was included in its present form from version 1.0.0 of the Unicode Standard, without addition or alteration of the character repertoire.[5] Its block name in Unicode 1.0 was ASCII.[6]

Table of characters

CodeResultDescriptionAcronym
C0 controls
U+0000Null characterNUL
U+0001Start of HeadingSOH
U+0002Start of TextSTX
U+0003End-of-text characterETX
U+0004End-of-transmission characterEOT
U+0005Enquiry characterENQ
U+0006Acknowledge characterACK
U+0007Bell characterBEL
U+0008BackspaceBS
U+0009Horizontal tabHT
U+000ALine feedLF
U+000BVertical tabVT
U+000CForm feedFF
U+000DCarriage returnCR
U+000EShift OutSO
U+000FShift InSI
U+0010Data Link EscapeDLE
U+0011Device Control 1DC1
U+0012Device Control 2DC2
U+0013Device Control 3DC3
U+0014Device Control 4DC4
U+0015Negative-acknowledge characterNAK
U+0016Synchronous IdleSYN
U+0017End of Transmission BlockETB
U+0018Cancel characterCAN
U+0019End of MediumEM
U+001ASubstitute characterSUB
U+001BEscape characterESC
U+001CFile SeparatorFS
U+001DGroup SeparatorGS
U+001ERecord SeparatorRS
U+001FUnit SeparatorUS
ASCII punctuation and symbols
U+0020 SpaceSP
U+0021Exclamation markEXC
U+0022"Quotation markQUO
U+0023Number sign
U+0024$Dollar sign
U+0025%Percent sign
U+0026&Ampersand
U+0027'Apostrophe
U+0028(Left parenthesis
U+0029)Right parenthesis
U+002AAsterisk
U+002BPlus sign
U+002C,Comma
U+002D-Hyphen-minus
U+002E.Full stop or period
U+002F/Solidus or Slash
ASCII digits
U+00300Digit Zero
U+00311Digit One
U+00322Digit Two
U+00333Digit Three
U+00344Digit Four
U+00355Digit Five
U+00366Digit Six
U+00377Digit Seven
U+00388Digit Eight
U+00399Digit Nine
ASCII punctuation and symbols
U+003AColon
U+003BSemicolon
U+003C<Less-than sign
U+003D=Equal sign
U+003E>Greater-than sign
U+003F?Question mark
U+0040@At sign or Commercial at
Uppercase Latin alphabet
U+0041ALatin Capital letter A
U+0042BLatin Capital letter B
U+0043CLatin Capital letter C
U+0044DLatin Capital letter D
U+0045ELatin Capital letter E
U+0046FLatin Capital letter F
U+0047GLatin Capital letter G
U+0048HLatin Capital letter H
U+0049ILatin Capital letter I
U+004AJLatin Capital letter J
U+004BKLatin Capital letter K
U+004CLLatin Capital letter L
U+004DMLatin Capital letter M
U+004ENLatin Capital letter N
U+004FOLatin Capital letter O
U+0050PLatin Capital letter P
U+0051QLatin Capital letter Q
U+0052RLatin Capital letter R
U+0053SLatin Capital letter S
U+0054TLatin Capital letter T
U+0055ULatin Capital letter U
U+0056VLatin Capital letter V
U+0057WLatin Capital letter W
U+0058XLatin Capital letter X
U+0059YLatin Capital letter Y
U+005AZLatin Capital letter Z
ASCII punctuation and symbols
U+005B[Left Square Bracket
U+005C\
U+005D]Right Square Bracket
U+005E^Circumflex accent
U+005F_Low line
U+0060`Grave accent
Lowercase Latin alphabet
U+0061aLatin Small Letter A
U+0062bLatin Small Letter B
U+0063cLatin Small Letter C
U+0064dLatin Small Letter D
U+0065eLatin Small Letter E
U+0066fLatin Small Letter F
U+0067gLatin Small Letter G
U+0068hLatin Small Letter H
U+0069iLatin Small Letter I
U+006AjLatin Small Letter J
U+006BkLatin Small Letter K
U+006ClLatin Small Letter L
U+006DmLatin Small Letter M
U+006EnLatin Small Letter N
U+006FoLatin Small Letter O
U+0070pLatin Small Letter P
U+0071qLatin Small Letter Q
U+0072rLatin Small Letter R
U+0073sLatin Small Letter S
U+0074tLatin Small Letter T
U+0075uLatin Small Letter U
U+0076vLatin Small Letter V
U+0077wLatin Small Letter W
U+0078xLatin Small Letter X
U+0079yLatin Small Letter Y
U+007AzLatin Small Letter Z
ASCII punctuation and symbols
U+007BRight Curly Bracket
U+007E~Tilde
Control character
U+007FDeleteDEL

The letter U+005C (\) may show up as a Yen(¥) or Won(₩) sign in Japanese/Korean fonts mistaking Unicode (especially UTF-8) as a legacy character set which replaced the backslash with these signs.[7]

Subheadings

The C0 Controls and Basic Latin block contains six subheadings.[8]

C0 controls

The C0 Controls, referred to as C0 ASCII control codes in version 1.0, are inherited from ASCII and other 7-bit and 8-bit encoding schemes. The Alias names for C0 controls are taken from the ISO/IEC 6429:1992 standard.

ASCII punctuation and symbols

This subheading refers to standard punctuation characters, simple mathematical operators, and symbols like the dollar sign, percent, ampersand, underscore, and pipe.

ASCII digits

The ASCII Digits subheading contains the standard European number characters 1–9 and 0.

Uppercase Latin alphabet

The Uppercase Latin alphabet subheading contains the standard 26-letter unaccented Latin alphabet in the majuscule.

Lowercase Latin alphabet

The Lowercase Latin Alphabet subheading contains the standard 26-letter unaccented Latin alphabet in the minuscule.

Control character

The Control Character subheading contains the "Delete" character.

Number of symbols, letters and control codes

The table below shows the number of letters, symbols and control codes in each of the subheadings in the C0 Controls and Basic Latin block.

SubheadingNumber of symbolsRange of characters
C0 controls32 control codesU+0000 to U+001F
ASCII punctuation and symbols33 punctuation marks and symbolsU+0020 to U+002F, U+003A to U+0040, U+005B to U+0060 and U+007B to U+007E
ASCII digits10 digitsU+0030 to U+0039
Uppercase Latin Alphabet26 unaccented Latin letters in the majuscule.U+0041 to U+005A
Lowercase Latin Alphabet26 unaccented Latin letters in the minuscule.U+0061 to U+007A
Control character1 control code containing the "Delete" character.U+007F

Chart

Variants

Several of the characters are defined to render as a standardized variant if followed by variant indicators.

A variant is defined for a zero with a short diagonal stroke: U+0030 DIGIT ZERO, U+FE00 VS1 (0&#xfe00;).[9]

Twelve characters (#, *, and the digits) can be followed by U+FE0E VS15 or U+FE0F VS16 to create emoji variants.[10] [11] [12] [13] They are keycap base characters, for example #️⃣ (U+0023 NUMBER SIGN U+FE0F VS16 U+20E3 COMBINING ENCLOSING KEYCAP). The VS15 version is "text presentation" while the VS16 version is "emoji-style".[14]

Emoji variation sequences
U+ 0023 002A 0030 0031 0032 0033 0034 0035 0036 0037 0038 0039
base 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
base+VS15+keycap
  1. &#xfe0e;&#x20e3;
  • &#xfe0e;&#x20e3;
0&#xfe0e;&#x20e3; 1&#xfe0e;&#x20e3; 2&#xfe0e;&#x20e3; 3&#xfe0e;&#x20e3; 4&#xfe0e;&#x20e3; 5&#xfe0e;&#x20e3; 6&#xfe0e;&#x20e3; 7&#xfe0e;&#x20e3; 8&#xfe0e;&#x20e3; 9&#xfe0e;&#x20e3;
base+VS16+keycap
  1. &#xfe0f;&#x20e3;
  • &#xfe0f;&#x20e3;
0&#xfe0f;&#x20e3; 1&#xfe0f;&#x20e3; 2&#xfe0f;&#x20e3; 3&#xfe0f;&#x20e3; 4&#xfe0f;&#x20e3; 5&#xfe0f;&#x20e3; 6&#xfe0f;&#x20e3; 7&#xfe0f;&#x20e3; 8&#xfe0f;&#x20e3; 9&#xfe0f;&#x20e3;

History

The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Basic Latin block:

See also

References

  1. Web site: Unicode character database. The Unicode Standard. 2023-07-26.
  2. Web site: Enumerated Versions of The Unicode Standard. The Unicode Standard. 2023-07-26.
  3. Web site: block.txt. 2023-03-23. The Unicode Consortium.
  4. Web site: C0 Controls and Basic Latin. The Unicode Standard, Version 15.0. Unicode, Inc.. 2022. March 22, 2023.
  5. Book: The Unicode Standard Version 1.0, Volume 1. 1990. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.. 0-201-56788-1.
  6. Web site: 3.8: Block-by-Block Charts . The Unicode Standard . version 1.0 . Unicode Consortium.
  7. Web site: When is a backslash not a backslash?. Sorting it all Out. Michael S. Kaplan. Microsoft. 2005-09-17. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20100612050134/http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2005/09/17/469941.aspx. 2010-06-12. Also available at: http://archives.miloush.net/michkap/archive/2005/09/17/469941.html
  8. Web site: Unicode 6.2 code charts. The Unicode Standard. 1 April 2013.
  9. Web site: L2/15-268: Proposal to Represent the Slashed Zero Variant of Empty Set. 2015-10-30. Barbara. Beeton. Asmus. Freytag. Laurențiu. Iancu. Murray. Sargent.
  10. Web site: L2/11-438: Emoji Variation Sequences (Revision of L2/11-429). 2011-12-22. Peter. Edberg.
  11. Web site: L2/15-301: A proposal for 278 standardized variation sequences for emoji. 2015-11-01. Roozbeh. Pournader.
  12. Web site: UTR #51: Unicode Emoji. Unicode Consortium. 2023-09-05.
  13. Web site: UCD: Emoji Data for UTR #51. Unicode Consortium. 2023-02-01.
  14. Web site: UTS #51 Emoji Variation Sequences . The Unicode Consortium.

External links