Skip to content
Writing Systems Technical Resources

Unicode Status for Batak

In The Unicode Standard, Batak script implementation is discussed in Chapter 17: Southeast Asia-II — Indonesia and the Philippines.

The Batak script was encoded in The Unicode Standard version 6.0. The script is encoded in the following block:

BlocksCharacter RangeAdded in Unicode VersionUnicode Chart
Batak1BC0..1BFF6.0U1BC0.pdf

Subsequent to version 6.0, the following characters have been added to the Batak script:

CharactersUnicode VersionDocumentation
1BFA..1BFB6.1n3320.pdf, L2/08-011

Documentation refers to ISO Working Group and Unicode proposals

A number of proposals for its inclusion were submitted to the Unicode Technical Committee and WG2:

  • 1992-10-23 Batak — Rick McGowan (Unicode Technical Report #3 R2)

  • 1999-02-11 Batak script (preliminary chart) — Michael Everson (L2/99-066)

  • 2007-07-26 Preliminary proposal for encoding the Batak script in the UCS — Michael Everson (WG2 N3293, L2/07-233)

  • 2008-04-14 Discussion of Batak Vowel Ordering — Rick McGowan, Ken Whistler (WG2 N3446, L2/08-147)

  • 2008-08-04 On the inputting model for Batak — Michael Everson and Uli Kozok (WG2 N3489, L2/08-274)

  • 2008-08-11 Batak Input — Deborah Anderson (L2/08-312)

  • 2008-10-07 Proposal for encoding the Batak script in the UCS — Michael Everson and Uli Kozok (WG2 N3320, L2/08-011)

  • 2009-01-29 Dialect-Specific Characters in Batak — Deborah Anderson (L2/09-063)

  • 2011-03-03 Indonesian and Philippine Scripts and extensions not yet encoded or proposed for encoding in Unicode — Christopher Miller (L2/11-091)

  • 2022-04-13 Specification updates for orthographic syllables and line breaking — Norbert Lindenberg, et al (L2/22-086)

  • 2022-04-15 Line breaking at orthographic syllable boundaries (revised) — Norbert Lindenberg, et al (L2/22-080)

  • 2022-07-20 Batak Recommendations to UTC #172 July 2022 on Script Proposals (L2/22-128) (See point 8.)

  • 2023-07-12 Reordering virama — Norbert Lindenberg (L2/23-205)

    • Recommendations to UTC #177 November 2023 on Script Proposals (L2/23-238) (See point A.VIII.18.)

    • UTC #177 Minutes (L2/23-231) (See D.1.1 Section 18 for decision and action items)

  • 2023-11-16 Proposal to add an annotation to BATAK LETTER KARO BA — Ben Yang (L2/23-275)

    • Recommendations to UTC #178 January 2024 on Script Proposals (L2/24-013) (See point A.V.9.)

    • UTC #178 Minutes (L2/24-006) (See D.1.1 Section 9 for decision and action items)