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Writing Systems Technical Resources

Unicode Status for Syriac

In The Unicode Standard, Syriac Script implementation is discussed in Chapter 9 Middle East-I — Modern and Liturgical Scripts and in UTN 52: Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA) Encoding. The Unicode Syriac block combines all three main script variants (Estrangelo, Eastern and Western) in a single set of character codes.

Syriac script was first encoded in The Unicode Standard version 3.0. The script is now encoded in the following blocks:

BlocksCharacter RangeAdded in Unicode VersionUnicode Chart
Syriac0700..074F3.0U0700.pdf
Syriac Supplement0860..086F10.0U0860.pdf

Subsequent to version 3.0, the following characters have been added to the Syriac script:

CharactersUnicode VersionDocumentation
072D..072F4.0n2422.pdf/L2/02-132
074D..074F4.0n2422.pdf/L2/02-132
0860..086A10.0L2/15-088

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:

  • 1992-11-25 Syriac — Rick McGowan (Unicode Technical Report #3 R2)

  • 1997-02-24 The Unicode draft proposal for Syriac character encoding — Rick McGowan (L2/97-130 (not online))

  • 1998-02-23 Supporting letters for Encoding Syriac — Paul Nelson, George Kiraz (L2/98-051 (not online))

  • 1998-02-23 Examples of Syriac — Paul Nelson, George Kiraz (L2/98-052 (not online))

  • 1998-02-27 Presentation to support the coding of Syriac — Paul Nelson, George Kiraz (L2/98-069 (not online))

  • 1998-03-06 Proposal to Encode Syriac in ISO/IEC 10646 — Paul Nelson, George Anton Kiraz, Sargon Hasso (WG2 N1718 (not online), (L2/98-050)

  • 1998-05-05 Part 1:Architecture and Basic Multilingual Plane AMENDMENT 27: Syriac — WG2 (WG2 N1827syriac)

  • 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)

  • 2000-12-21 Encoding Iranian Scripts in Unicode, Iranianist meeting report from Paris — Carl-Martin Bunz (L2/01-007)

  • 2001-03-13 Joining group “WAW” — Marco Cimarosti (L2/01-118)

  • 2002-03-30 Proposal to add six Syriac letters for Sogdian and Persian to the UCS — Nicholas Sims-Williams, Michael Everson (WG2 N2422, L2/02-132)

  • 2002-05-01 What do you think of adding 6 new Syriac characters — Paul Nelson (L2/02-185)

  • 2002-11-04 Shaping behaviour of six Syriac letters for Sogdian and Persian — Michael Everson, Nicholas Sims-Williams (WG2 N2509, L2/02-405)

  • 2010-10-27 Refixing the bidi class for U+070F SYRIAC ABBREVIATION MARK — Roozbeh Pournader, Behdad Esfahbod (L2/10-439)

  • 2011-07-21 Syriac shaping fixes and clarifications — Behdad Esfahbod (L2/11-286)

  • 2012-01-30 Glyph erratum for U+0709 SYRIAC SUBLINEAR COLON SKEWED RIGHT — Deborah Anderson (L2/12-050)

  • 2012-05-08 Naming error for U+0709 SYRIAC SUBLINEAR COLON SKEWED RIGHT — Deborah Anderson (WG2 N4272, L2/12-188)

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

  • 2015-02-15 Syriac appears to be missing various combining characters — Roozbeh Pournader (L2/15-081)

  • 2015-04-21 Preliminary Proposal to Encode Syriac Letters for Garshuni Malayalam — Anshuman Pandey (L2/15-088)

  • 2015-06-02 Proposal to Encode Syriac Letters for Garshuni Malayalam — Anshuman Pandey (L2/15-156)

  • 2015-06-10 Feedback on the Alphabetization of the Syriac letters for Garshuni (Suryani) Malayalam — István Perczel (L2/15-166)

  • 2017-05-09 Joining properties of Syriac letters used for writing Malayalam — Roozbeh Pournader (L2/17-164)

  • 2019-09-21 Expanding the “Syriac Supplement” U+0860 Block for historical glyphs and marks — Sebastian Kenoro Kiraz, George A. Kiraz (L2/19-338)

    • Recommendations to UTC #161 October 2019 on Script Proposals (L2/19-343) (See point 8.)

    • UTC #161 Minutes (L2/19-323) (See C.12 for decision and action items)

  • 2020-01-07 Proposal to encode COMBINING DOT BELOW LEFT for Syriac — Sebastian Kenoro Kiraz, George A. Kiraz (L2/20-019)

    • Recommendations to UTC #162 January 2020 on Script Proposals (L2/20-046) (See point 6.)

    • UTC #162 Minutes (L2/20-015) (See C.9 for decision and action items)

  • 2022-07-20 Recommendations to UTC #172 July 2022 on Script Proposals (L2/22-128) (See point 30.)

  • 2023-12-22 UTN#52: Christian Palestinian Aramaic Encoding — Claire Clivaz and Alain J. Desreumaux (UTN#52)

    • Recommendations to UTC #177 November 2023 on Script Proposals (L2/23-238) (See point C.30.)