Myanmar (Unicode block) explained

Blockname:	Myanmar
Rangestart:	1000
Rangeend:	109F
Script1:	Myanmar
Alphabets:	Burmese Mon Karen Kayah Shan Palaung
3 0:	78
5 1:	78
5 2:	4
Note:	^[1] ^[2] Range used for Tibetan script prior to Unicode 1.0.1 (see Tibetan (obsolete Unicode block)).

Myanmar is a Unicode block containing characters for the Burmese, Mon, Shan, Palaung, and the Karen languages of Myanmar, as well as the Aiton and Phake languages of Northeast India. It is also used to write Pali and Sanskrit in Myanmar.

Block

The block has sixteen variation sequences defined for standardized variants.^[3] They use (VS01) to denote the dotted letters used for the Khamti, Aiton, and Phake languages.^[4] (Note that this is font dependent. For example, the Padauk font supports some of the dotted forms.)

Variation sequences for dotted forms

U+	1000	1002	1004	1010	1011	1015	1019	101A	101C	101D	1022	1031	1075	1078	107A	1080
base code point
base + VS01

History

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

		Count	UTC ID	L2 ID	WG2 ID	Document
3.0	U+1000..1021, 1023..1027, 1029..102A, 102C..1032, 1036..1039, 1040..1059	78			N881
					N1167
					N1523
					N1603
					N1729
					N1780
					N1826
					N1703
				html)
					doc, Ireland, Japan)
					N1883R2
					N1912
					N1913
					html, doc)
					N2003
					doc)
5.1	U+1022, 1075..1099, 109E..109F	40			N2768R
					doc)
					N3080
					N3143
					doc)
					doc)
					N3277R2
	U+1028, 1033..1034, 105A..1064	14			N2827
					N2966
					N3061
					N3044
					N3079
					N3099
					doc)
	U+102B, 103A..103F	7
					N3043R
					N3069
					N3078R
					doc)
	U+1035	1			N3115
					doc)
	U+1065..1074	16
					N3142
					doc)
5.2	U+109A..109D	4			N3436
					N3423R
					N3492
					doc)
					doc)

Historic and nonstandard uses of range

In Unicode 1.0.0, part of the current Myanmar block was used for Tibetan. In Microsoft Windows, collation data referring to the old Tibetan block was retained as late as Windows XP, and removed in Windows 2003.^[5]

In Myanmar, devices and software localisation often use Zawgyi fonts rather than Unicode-compliant fonts.^[6] These use the same range as the Unicode Myanmar block (0x1000–0x109F), and are even applied to text encoded like UTF-8 (although Zawgyi text does not officially constitute UTF-8), despite only a subset of the code points being interpreted the same way. Zawgyi lacks support for Myanmar-script languages other than Burmese, but heuristic methods exist for detecting the encoding of text which is assumed to be Burmese.^[7]

Notes and 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: Unicode Character Database: Standardized Variation Sequences . The Unicode Consortium.
4. Web site: L2/15-320: Proposal to Create Variation Sequences for Khamti Characters. 2015-11-03. Martin. Hosken.
5. Web site: Every character has a story #29: U+1000^H^H^H^H0f40, (TIBETAN or MYANMAR LETTER KA, depending on when you ask). Kaplan . Michael . Sorting it all out . 2007-08-28 .
6. Web site: Zawgyi vs. Unicode . Sasha . Nagarajah . Global App Testing .
7. Web site: Myanmar Scripts and Languages . Frequently Asked Questions . Steven R. . Loomis . Craig . Cornelius . . 2019.