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Writing Systems Technical Resources

Unicode Status for Meroitic Cursive

In The Unicode Standard, Meroitic Cursive script implementation is discussed in Chapter 11 Cuneiform and Hieroglyphs.

Meroitic Cursive was encoded in The Unicode Standard version 6.1. The script is encoded in the following block:

BlocksCharacter RangeAdded in Unicode VersionUnicode Chart
Meroitic Cursive109A0..109FF6.1U109A0.pdf

Subsequent to version 6.1, the following characters have been added to the script:

CharactersUnicode VersionDocumentation
109BC..109BD8.0WG2 N4276, L2/12-206
109C0..109CF8.0WG2 N4276, L2/12-206
109D2..109FF8.0WG2 N4276, L2/12-206

Documentation refers to ISO Working Group and Unicode proposals

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

  • 1992-10-21 Meroïtic — Rick McGowan (Unicode Technical Report #3 R2)

  • 1997-09-18 Proposal to encode Meroitic in Plane 1 of ISO/IEC 10646-2 — Michael Everson (WG2 N1638 (not online), L2/97-268 (not online))

  • 1999-07-13 Report on the standardization of a Meroitic sign list for Unicode — Pawel Wolf (WG2 N2098, L2/99-222)

  • 1999-10-02 Response to comments on the question of encoding Meroitic in the UCS (N2098) — Michael Everson (WG2 N2134.htm)

  • 2008-08-04 Preliminary proposal for encoding the Meroitic script in the SMP of the UCS — Michael Everson (WG2 N3484, L2/08-269)

  • 2009-05-13 Proposal for encoding the Meroitic script in the SMP of the UCS — Michael Everson (WG2 N3646, L2/09-188)

  • 2009-07-29 Proposal for encoding the Meroitic Hieroglyphic and the Meroitic Cursive scripts in the SMP of the UCS — Michael Everson (WG2 N3665, L2/09-250)

  • 2012-06-06 Proposal for encoding Meroitic numbers in the SMP of the UCS — Michael Everson (WG2 N4276, L2/12-206)

  • 2012-11-03 Sorting all RTL scripts together — Roozbeh Pournader (L2/12-377)

  • 2022-03-03 Update on implementation status of African scripts — Charles L. Riley (L2/22-073)

    • Recommendations to UTC #171 April 2022 on Script Proposals (L2/22-068) (See point 28.)

    • UTC #171 Minutes (L2/22-061) (See D.1 SECTION 28 for decision and action items)

  • 2023-09-08 Update on Usage and Implementation Status of African Scripts — Oreen Yousuf, Charles Riley, Daniel Yacob, Neil Patel, Tim Brookes (L2/23-203)

    • Recommendations to UTC #177 November 2023 on Script Proposals (L2/23-238) (See point C.26.)