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Writing Systems Technical Resources

Unicode Status for Brahmi

In The Unicode Standard, Brahmi script implementation is discussed in Chapter 14: South and Central Asia-III — Ancient Scripts.

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

BlocksCharacter RangeAdded in Unicode VersionUnicode Chart
Brahmi11000..1107F6.0U11000

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

CharactersUnicode VersionDocumentation
1107F7.0WG2 N4166, L2/11-357

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:

  • 1992-10-30 Brahmi and Other Scripts of India — Rick McGowan (Unicode Technical Report #3 R2)

  • 1998-01-18 Proposal to encode Brahmi in Plane 1 of ISO/IEC 10646 — Michael Everson (L2/98-032)

  • 2000-02-15 Scripts from the Past in Future Versions of Unicode — Carl-Martin Bunz (L2/00-128)

  • 2000-04-26 Further comments on historic scripts — Carl-Martin Bunz (L2/00-153)

  • 2002-11-02 Note for the UTC on the encoding of Brahmi in Unicode — Stefan Baums, Andrew Glass (L2/02-397)

  • 2003-07-27 Proposal for the Encoding of Brahmi — Stefan Baums, Andrew Glass (L2/03-249)

  • 2007-08-14 Progressing the encoding of Brahmi in the SMP of the UCS — Michael Everson, Andrew Glass, Stefan Baums (WG2 N3490, L2/08-277)

  • 2007-10-09 Proposal for the encoding of Brāhmī in Plane 1 of ISO/IEC 10646 — Stefan Baums, Andrew Glass (WG2 N3491, L2/07-342)

  • 2007-10-31 Scripts on Roadmap covered by Brahmi encoding — Andrew Glass, Stefan Baums (L2/07-406)

  • 2008-05-05 Towards property classification for Brahmi-derived scripts — Ken Whistler (L2/08-207)

  • 2010-07-27 Proposal to change the glyph for Brahmi Number One Thousand (U+11065) — Andrew Glass, Stefan Baums (L2/10-260)

  • 2010-09-14 Using ZWJ in the encoded representation of Brahmi numbers — Shriramana Sharma (L2/10-340)

  • 2010-09-14 Concerning the Brahmi and Sharada characters for jihvamuliya and upadhmaniya (revised) — Shriramana Sharma (L2/10-330)

  • 2011-05-01 Introducing the Magar Akkha Script — Anshuman Pandey (WG2 N4036, L2/11-144)

  • 2011-11-02 Proposal to encode 1107F Brahmi Number Joiner (revised) — Andrew Glass, Shriramana Sharma (WG2 N4166, L2/11-357)

  • 2011-11-04 Proposed Additions to ISO/IEC 10646 — U.S. National Body (WG2 N4181, L2/11-330)

  • 2012-01-12 Special rendering of some jihvamuliya/upadhmaniya characters — Shriramana Sharma (L2/12-020)

  • 2012-03-17 Request for editorial updates to various Indic scripts — Shriramana Sharma (L2/12-106)

  • 2012-05-02 Brahmi Letter LLA glyph in TUS – Comment on document L2/12-106 — Naga Ganesan (L2/12-165)

  • 2012-07-10 Proposal to add two characters for Brahmi — Shriramana Sharma (L2/12-226)

  • 2012-07-18 Update on Brahmi and other Indic unification issues — Shriramana Sharma (L2/12-236)

  • 2012-07-31 Indic Scripts in Unicode — Eric Muller (L2/12-289)

  • 2012-07-31 Proposal to change the glyph for Brahmi Letter Lla (U+11034) — Andrew Glass (WG2 N4333, L2/12-292)

  • 2012-10-08 Proposal to Encode Nepal Himalayish Scripts in ISO/IEC 10646 — Pat Hall (WG2 N4347, L2/12-365)

    • Review of Indic‐related documents and Recommendations to the UTC (L2/12-378) (See point II.)

    • UTC #133 Minutes (L2/12-343) (See D.10.1 for decision and action items)

  • 2014-02-07 Special rendering of some jihvamuliya/upadhmaniya characters — Shriramana Sharma (L2/14-066)

  • 2016-11-05 Request to change the glyphs of Brahmi vowel signs Vocalic R and Vocalic RR — Srinidhi A, Sridatta A (L2/16-343)

    • Recommendations to UTC #150 January 2017 on Script Proposals (L2/17-037) (See point 3b.)

    • UTC #150 Minutes (L2/17-016) (See D.9.2 for decision and action items)

  • 2016-12-23 Request to change the glyph of 11008 BRAHMI LETTER II — Srinidhi A, Sridatta A (L2/16-321)

    • Recommendations to UTC #150 January 2017 on Script Proposals (L2/17-037) (See point 3a.)

    • UTC #150 Minutes (L2/17-016) (See D.9.1 for decision and action items)

  • 2017-04-17 Request for editorial updates to Indic scripts — Srinidhi A, Sridatta A (L2/17-098)

    • Recommendations to UTC #152 July-August 2017 on Script Proposals (L2/17-255) (See point 7.)

  • 2017-12-08 Request to change the glyphs of THIRTY and FORTY of Brahmi — Srinidhi A, Sridatta A (L2/17-426)

    • Recommendations to UTC #154 January 2018 on Script Proposals (L2/18-039) (See point 8.)

    • UTC #154 Minutes (L2/18-007) (See D.14 for decision and action items)

  • 2018-01-05 Changes to Core Specification for Indic scripts for Unicode 11.0 (revised) — Srinidhi A, Sridatta A (L2/17-423)

    • Recommendations to UTC #154 January 2018 on Script Proposals (L2/18-039) (See point 6a section 6.)

    • UTC #154 Minutes (L2/18-007) (See D.13 for decision and action items)

    • Recommendations to UTC #155 April-May 2018 on Script Proposals (L2/18-168) (See point 3 section 6.)

  • 2019-12-18 Proposal to Encode 6 Characters in the Brahmi Block — Vinodh Rajan, Shriramana Sharma (L2/19-402)

    • Recommendations to UTC #162 January 2020 on Script Proposals (L2/20-046) (See point 7.)

    • UTC #162 Minutes (L2/20-015) (See D.3 for decision and action items)

    • Recommendations to UTC #164 July 2020 on Script Proposals (L2/20-169) (See point 10.)

    • UTC #164 Minutes (L2/20-172) (See B.1 for decision and action items)

  • 2020-01-05 Comments on L2/19-402 Proposal to Encode 6 Characters in the Brahmi Block — Andrew Glass (L2/20-037)

    • Recommendations to UTC #162 January 2020 on Script Proposals (L2/20-046) (See point 7.)

    • Recommendations to UTC #163 April-May 2020 on Script Proposals (L2/20-105) (See point 5.)

  • 2020-02-24 Proposal to Annotate Brahmi Sign Anusvara — Vinodh Rajan, Shriramana Sharma (L2/20-069)

    • Recommendations to UTC #163 April-May 2020 on Script Proposals (L2/20-105) (See point 5.)

    • Recommendations to UTC #164 July 2020 on Script Proposals (L2/20-169) (See point 10.)

  • 2020-04-21 Comments on L2/20-069: Encoding of Tamil Brahmi Virama (U+11070) — Naga Ganesan (L2/20-129)

    • Recommendations to UTC #164 July 2020 on Script Proposals (L2/20-169) (See point 10.)

  • 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 Recommendations to UTC #172 July 2022 on Script Proposals (L2/22-128) (See point 19.)

  • 2022-08-07 Proposal to encode MINIMIZING VIRAMA in Brahmi script — Srinidhi A, Sridatta A (L2/22-219)

    • Recommendations to UTC #173 November 2022 on Script Proposals (L2/22-248) (See point B 14.)