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Writing Systems Technical Resources

Unicode Status for Tamil

In The Unicode Standard, Tamil script implementation is discussed in Chapter 12 South and Central Asia-I — Official Scripts of India.

The Tamil script was first encoded in The Unicode Standard version 1.0. The script is encoded in the following blocks:

BlocksCharacter RangeAdded in Unicode VersionDocumentation
Tamil0B80..0BFF1.0U0B80.pdf
Tamil Supplement11FC0..11FFF12.0U11FC0.pdf

Vedic Extensions may be used with the Tamil script as well as many other Indic scripts.

Subsequent to version 1.0, the following characters have been added to the Tamil script:

CharactersUnicode VersionDocumentation
0BB64.1n2617.pdf/L2/03-273, n2618.pdf/L2/03-278
0BD05.1n3119.pdf/L2/06-184
0BE64.1n2741.pdf/L2/04-073
0BF3..0BFA4.0n2381r.pdf/L2/01-375
1133BpendingL2/15-256
11FC0..11FD0pendingWG2 N4430, L2/13-047
11FD1..11FEFpendingWG2 N4430, L2/13-047
11FF0..11FF5pendingWG2 N4430, L2/13-047
11FFFpendingWG2 N4430, L2/13-047

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:

  • 2000-11-07 Problems with the Tamil Block Description — Michael Kaplan (L2/00-400)

  • 2000-11-07 Visual order in Indic Languages — Michael Kaplan (L2/00-405)

  • 2000-11-15 Unicode representation of Indian Scripts — M.N. Cooper (L2/00-417)

  • 2001-01-03 Invitation letter to the government of Tamil Nadu for the UTC meeting in Mountain View (January 2001) — Lisa Moore (L2/01-017)

  • 2001-10-11 Proposal to add eight Tamil symbols — V.S. Umamaheswaran (WG2 N2381r, L2/01-375)

  • 2001-11-06 INFITT Liaison Report – Unicode in Tamil — Mike Kaplan (L2/01-448)

  • 2002-03-15 Feedback on Tamil Symbols in PDFAM2-10646-1 — V.S. Umamaheswaran (WG2 N2421, L2/02-112)

  • 2002-08-21 A brief report on the evaluation of Unicode standards for Tamil — Michael Kaplan (L2/02-309)

  • 2003-08-21 TN to push for improving Unicode standards (Tamil) — K. Ramachandran (The Hindu (news)) (L2/03-274)

  • 2003-08-22 Review of a Proposal placed before UTC bearing No. L2/03-273 — Peri Bhaskararao (L2/03-278)

  • 2003-09-14 Proposal to add Tamil grantha character SHA — INFITT (WG2 N2617, L2/03-273)

  • 2003-09-15 Review of a Proposal placed before Unicode Technical Committee entitled ‘Proposal to add Tamil Letter SHA’ (L2/03-273) — Peri Bhaskararao (WG2 N2618)

  • 2003-12-15 Tamil-Encoding issues, #5 (Proposal for Tamil in Unicode) — N. Anbarasan (L2/03-448)

  • 2004-02-01 Proposal to add Tamil digit zero — INFITT (WG2 N2741, L2/04-073)

  • 2004-03-09 Indic scripts collation grouping; CTT suggestion — Kent Karlsson (WG2 2716.doc, L2/04-109)

  • 2004-06-30 Proposal on Clarification and Consolidation of the Function of ZERO WIDTH JOINER in Indic Scripts — Peter Constable (L2/04-279)

  • 2005-02-07 Issues in Representation of Indic Scripts in Unicode (Unicode Conference Presentation) — Om Vikas (L2/05-063)

  • 2005-04-25 Tamil Named Sequences — Silvaraj D (L2/05-129)

  • 2005-05-04 Ligatures of r, ri, and rii — INFITT (L2/05-120)

  • 2005-07-25 Documentation for KSSA as Non-conjunct Consonant and Conjunct Consonant in Tamil — INFITT (L2/05-185)

  • 2005-07-30 Suggested Tamil default collation in the UCA — INFITT WG02 (L2/05-186)

  • 2005-10-21 General category and bidi property for some Indic characters — Asmus Freytag (L2/05-304)

  • 2005-10-24 Comments on 5.0 properties, and property consistency, for some Indic characters (introduced before 5.0) — Kent Karlsson (L2/05-316)

  • 2006-04-17 Dravidian script “markers” code-points in Unicode — Naga Ganesan (L2/06-134)

  • 2006-04-28 Proposal to add Tamil Om — INFITT (WG2 N3119, L2/06-184)

  • 2006-07-03 Proposal to update the codepage for the Tamil Script, with downward compatibility — V.Ramasami (L2/06-229)

  • 2006-07-03 On the Crisis of Tamil Computing Encoding — Thillai K. Kumaran (submitted by M. Ponnavaikko) (L2/08-104)

  • 2006-08-23 Supplemental Proposal (vide Ref. 2 below) to update the codepage for the Tamil Script, with downward compatibility. — V.Ramasami (L2/06-301)

  • 2007-05-04 Tamil All Character Encoding — Gov’t of Tamil Nadu (L2/07-128)

  • 2007-05-15 A Proposal from Tamil Nadu Government for Tamil Unicode — M. Ponnavaikko (L2/07-175)

  • 2007-05-23 Review of Tamil Unicode — M. Ponnavaikko, Mani M. Manivannan, Manoj Annadurai (L2/07-193)

  • 2007-09-19 Proposal to add Tamil sequences to NamedSequencesProv.txt — Mark Davis (L2/07-331)

  • 2008-01-29 Tamil Issues — Mark Davis (L2/08-078)

  • 2008-02-04 The official remarks from Dr.C.Chandramouli, Secretary to the Government, Information Technology Department, Government of Tamil Nadu — M. Ponnavaikko ( L2/08-103)

  • 2008-03-02 Criteria for the encoding of script-specific dandas Unicode and US National Body (WG2 N3457, L2/08-118)

  • 2008-03-21 Representation of Ogham Space, Tamil named sequences INCITS L2 / UTC (WG2 N3407, L2/08-142)

  • 2008-06-19 (Draft) Tamil Character Code for Information Interchange — Sri Lanka N.B. (L2/08-240)

  • 2008-06-19 (Draft) Tamil Character Code for Information Interchange - Part 1: Collation Sequence — Sri Lanka N.B. (L2/08-241)

  • 2009-09-22 Request to allocate a Tamil Supplementary block in the Unicode SMP Roadmap — Shriramana Sharma (L2/09-317)

  • 2009-10-25 Request for encoding Tamil Major Fractions — Shriramana Sharma (L2/09-376)

  • 2009-10-30 Tamil fractions - Comment on L2/09-376 — Naga Ganesan / INFITT (L2/09-398)

  • 2009-11-02 Comment on L2/09-376 Tamil Fractions Gihan Dias (L2/09-416)

  • 2010-06-23 Tamil Nadu Government Report — Tamil Nadu (L2/10-318)

  • 2010-07-10 Proposal to encode characters for Extended Tamil — Shriramana Sharma (L2/10-256)

  • 2010-07-31 Tamil Letters with Numbered Superscripts – Comment on L2/10-256 — Naga Ganesan (L2/10-298)

  • 2010-08-21 Comments on L2/09-405, L2/10-297, L2/10-298 and L2/10-303 — Shriramana Sharma (L2/10-332)

  • 2010-09-30 Naming of Characters in Extended Tamil Block in SMP — INFITT (L2/10-363)

  • 2010-09-30 Follow-up to Extended Tamil proposal L2/10-256R Shriramana Sharma (L2/10-379)

  • 2010-10-04 Request to encode Tamil fractions Shriramana Sharma (L2/10-334)

  • 2010-10-04 Response to L2/10-363 from INFITT — Shriramana Sharma (L2/10-380)

  • 2010-10-16 Follow-up #2 to Extended Tamil proposal — Shriramana Sharma (L2/10-407)

  • 2010-10-19 Encoding of Tamil Fractions in Unicode — INFITT / Naga Ganesan (L2/10-408)

  • 2010-10-21 INFITT Response to Extended Tamil Proposal in Unicode Tamil Block — Va.Mu.Se. Kaviarasan (L2/10-436)

  • 2010-10-22 Comments on L2/10-256R and L2/10-363 — Vinodh Rajan (L2/10-425)

  • 2010-10-22 Revised Tamil fractions proposal (supplement to L2/10-334R) — Shriramana Sharma (L2/10-428)

  • 2010-10-27 Using superscripts and subscripts with Tamil consonants — Muthu Nedumaran (L2/10-435)

  • 2011-01-30 Opposition to Unification of Grantham and Tamil Scripts in the Unicode — J. Sundaravelu (L2/11-027)

  • 2011-02-06 Comments on Tamil Unicode and Grantham Proposals — B. Eraiyarasan (L2/11-055)

  • 2011-02-07 Requesting the UTC to Reject Proposals to Mix Tamil and Grantha — T. Ramakrishnan (L2/11-060)

  • 2011-05-02 My views, opinions & suggestions as feedback on proposals styled as “Extended Tamil” — N. D. Logasundaram (L2/11-148)

  • 2011-06-05 Tamil Feedback via Reporting Form, May 28 - June 5, 2011 — A.R.Amaithi Anantham (L2/11-304)

  • 2011-12-14 Request to deprecate 0B82 TAMIL SIGN ANUSVARA — Shriramana Sharma (L2/12-018)

  • 2012-01-26 Fresh Encoding Proposals for Tamil — A.R.Amaithi Anantham (L2/12-033)

  • 2012-01-31 Proposal to change the glyph shape of Tamil Sign Anusvara (U+0B82) — Naga Ganesan (L2/12-051)

  • 2012-02-07 Inputs of Govt. of India on various documents — Swaran Lata (L2/12-079)

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

  • 2012-05-01 Tamil credit sign (U+0BF7) glyph shape from Printed Books; Comment on L2/12-106 - Request for editorial updates to various Indic scripts Naga Ganesan (L2/12-150)

  • 2012-05-05 Review of Indic-related L2 documents and Recommendations — Mani Manivannan (L2/12-180)

  • 2012-07-17 Proposal to encode Tamil fractions and symbols — Shriramana Sharma (L2/12-231)

  • 2012-07-17 Regarding my Tamil fractions/symbols proposal — Shriramana Sharma (L2/12-232)

  • 2012-07-23 Comment on L2/12-231: Tamil symbols and fractions — Naga Ganesan (L2/12-243)

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

  • 2012-11-06 Comments on Tamil fractions and Tamil credit sign — Naga Ganesan (L2/12-384)

  • 2013-01-21 Upcoming discussion in Unicode about Tamil fractions — P.R. Nakkeeran (L2/13-007)

  • 2013-03-05 Revised proposal to encode Tamil fractions and symbols — Shriramana Sharma (WG2 N4430, L2/13-047)

  • 2013-04-26 Comment on L2/13-047: Revised Proposal to encode Tamil fractions and Symbols — Naga Ganesan (L2/13-077)

  • 2013-06-12 Attestations for Tamil fractions and Symbols — Shriramana Sharma (WG2 N4462)

  • 2013-07-25 Request to Use Tamil names in Tamil fractions and symbols in Unicode Standard — Tamil Virtual Academy (L2/13-161)

  • 2013-08-09 Request to change the Unicode chart font for Tamil — Shriramana Sharma (WG2 N4476, L2/13-174)

  • 2013-08-09 Response to L2/13-161 on naming Tamil fractions and symbols — Shriramana Sharma (WG2 N4477, L2/13-175)

  • 2013-08-24 Request to change one character name from N4430 L2/13-047 — Shriramana Sharma (WG2 N4478, L2/13-176)

  • 2013-09-06 Request to change two glyphs of existing Tamil symbols — Shriramana Sharma (WG2 N4480)

  • 2013-10-23 Comment on Tamil Nadu Government Request L2/13-161, Use of Tamil Names for Tamil Fractions and Symbols — Naga Ganesan (L2/13-193)

  • 2013-11-03 Naming the Tamil fractions and symbols based on the Tamil Lexicon — Shriramana Sharma (L2/13-217)

  • 2013-11-04 Feedback from Tamil Experts on Tamil Character Names and Annotations of Symbols and Fractions — Naga Ganesan (L2/13-216)

  • 2013-11-07 Samples for usage of dandas in Gujarati, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Tamil — Roozbeh Pournader (L2/13-224)

  • 2013-12-20 Spelling changes for Tamil fractions and symbols — Shriramana Sharma (WG2 N4526, L2/14-018)

  • 2014-01-28 Spelling changes for Tamil fractions and symbols — Mani Manivannan, et al (WG2 N4528, L2/14-037)

  • 2014-01-28 Feedback on Tamil symbols naming scheme — P.R. Nakkeeran (L2/14-038)

  • 2014-01-30 Comments on the Proposals to Encode Tamil Symbols and Fractions — Gihan Dias/ICT Sri Lanka (L2/14-048)

  • 2014-07-18 Reply to L2/14-048 on Tamil fractions — Shriramana Sharma (L2/14-160)

  • 2014-07-28 Recommendations to UTC #140 August 2014 on Script Proposals — Deborah Anderson, Ken Whistler, Rick McGowan, Roozbeh Pournader, Laurentiu Iancu (L2/14-170)

  • 2014-08-06 Letter on Tamil Fraction Naming — Tamil Virtual Academy (L2/14-210)

  • 2014-09-03 Tamil names and annotations — Vasu Renganathan ( L2/14-212)

  • 2014-09-10 Current status of Tamil symbols naming issue — Shriramana Sharma (WG2 N4622, L2/14-216)

  • 2014-09-10 Response to the ICTA’s doc L2/14-048 on Tamil fractions and symbols — Shriramana Sharma (WG2 N4623, L2/14-217)

  • 2014-09-11 Unification of Tamil and Grantha numerals — Shriramana Sharma (L2/14-218)

  • 2014-09-11 A Proposal as a Standardised Romanisation Scheme for Full Tamilwords Used Inside Code Pages as in Naming of Various Characters Etc & In CLDR — N D Logasundaram (L2/14-215)

  • 2015-01-19 Naming Tamil Symbols in SMP - Vallinam Characters — Naga Ganesan (L2/15-003)

  • 2015-01-30 Recommendations to UTC #142 February 2015 on Script Proposals — Deborah Anderson, Ken Whistler, Rick McGowan, Roozbeh Pournader, Andrew Glass (L2/15-045)

  • 2015-02-04 Proposed Tamil Charts (for Unicode 8.0) — Michel Suignard (L2/15-078)

  • 2015-02-05 Minutes of the 2nd meeting of the TVA High Level Committee on Unicode related issues held on 23rd January 2015 — Tamil Virtual Academy (L2/15-060)

  • 2015-02-05 Proposed name changes to Tamil Supplement block characters — Roozbeh Pournader, Deborah Anderson, Alolita Sharma, Patrick Chew (L2/15-079)

  • 2015-04-23 Tamil Symbols Names and Annotations – Comment on L2/15-078 & L2/15-079 — Naga Ganesan (L2/15-115)

  • 2015-05-07 Proposals for New Script – Tamil-Latin(TL) Script for Indian Languages including Tamil and then world languages, in Tamil Block (0B80 – 0BFF) — A.R.Amaithi Anantham (L2/15-153)

  • 2015-05-07 Proposals for addition of 4 characters / 11 reformed vowel signs / reformed shapes of 4 characters in total 19 characters in Tamil Block (0B80 – 0BFF) — A.R.Amaithi Anantham (L2/15-152)

  • 2015-07-20 Encoding of Tamil fractions and special symbols in Tamil block and a new Tamil Supplement block — Gov’t of India / Manoj Jain (L2/15-176)

  • 2015-07-13 Recommendations on Tamil Fractions and special symbols in Unicode - Postponement of decision — Thiru T.K.Ramachandran (L2/15-185)

  • 2015-10-26 Proposal to Add Tamil Nukta Character — Martin Hosken (L2/15-256)

    • UTC #145 Minutes (L2/15-254) (See D.2.1 for decision and action items)

    • UTC #147 Minutes (L2/16-121) (See D.9 for decision and action items)

  • 2016-01-19 Letter No. 1766/e. Gov.I/2015-15 dated 19.1.2016 — IT Dept, Gov’t of Tamil Nadu (L2/16-007)

    • UTC #146 Minutes (L2/16-004) (See D.8.1.1 for decision and action items)

  • 2016-01-21 Comments from Vasu Renganathan re Tamil Nukta — Lisa Moore (L2/16-035)

    • UTC #146 Minutes (L2/16-004) (See D.8.2.2 for decision and action items)

  • 2016-01-22 Comments on the “Proposal to Add Tamil Nukta Character-L2/15-256” — Naga.Elangovan, Dr.Krishnan Ramasamy, N.D.Logasundaram (L2/16-030)

    • UTC #146 Minutes (L2/16-004) (See D.8.2.1 for decision and action items)

  • 2016-01-25 Tamil Fraction and symbols encoding proposal, extended feedbacks — Gov’t of Tamil Nadu (L2/16-039)

    • UTC #146 Minutes (L2/16-004) (See D.8.1.2 for decision and action items)

  • 2016-01-27 Letter No. 1766/e.Gov.I/2015-18 dated 27.1.2016 — Gov’t of Tamil Nadu (L2/16-054)

  • 2016-01-28 On the usage of nuktas in Tamil — Shriramana Sharma (L2/16-058)

  • 2016-02-25 Letter No.1766/e.Gov.I/2015-21 dated 25.02.2016 — Gov’t of Tamil Nadu IT (L2/16-061)

  • 2016-02-25 Tamil Fraction and symbols encoding proposal — Extended feedbacks — Gov’t of Tamil Nadu IT (L2/16-062)

  • 2016-04-20 Tamil Symbols: Comment on L2/16-062 — N. Ganesan (L2/16-083)

  • 2016-04-20 Proposal to Encode Single-dot Sign at U+1133B Comment on M. Hosken’s Badaga dot sign Proposal (L2/15-256) — N. Ganesan (L2/16-084)

  • 2016-05-02 Feedback on the GoTN’s document L2/16-062 on Tamil fractions and symbols — Shriramana Sharma (L2/16-114)

  • 2016-05-02 Comments on L2/16-084 “Proposal to encode single dot sign at 1133B” — Shriramana Sharma (L2/16-115)

    • UTC #147 Minutes (L2/16-121) (See D.9 for decision and action items)

  • 2016-05-06 Script Ad Hoc Recommendations on Tamil Fractions and Symbols (and Spreadsheet) — Debbie Anderson, Ken Whistler, Roozbeh Pournader, Laurentiu Iancu, Andrew Glass (L2/16-155, spreadsheet)

    • UTC #147 Minutes (L2/16-121) (See D.8.1.4 for decision and action items)

  • 2016-07-26 Character Name of U+1133B — Naga Ganesan (L2/16-211)

    • UTC #148 Minutes (L2/16-203) (See D.13 for decision and action items)

  • 2016-08-02 Request to rename 1133B to GRANTHA SIGN ONE-DOT NUKTA — Shriramana Sharma (L2/16-224)

  • 2017-01-23 Preliminary analysis of ZWNJ and ZWJ’s usage in Indic scripts (XLSX spreadsheet) — Liang Hai (L2/17-046)

  • 2017-03-16 Tamil Fractions and special symbols in Unicode — Gov’t of Tamil Nadu (L2/17-069)

    • Recommendations to UTC #151 May 2017 on Script Proposals (L2/17-153) (See point 7.)

    • UTC #151 Minutes (L2/17-103) (See D.8 for decision and action items)

  • 2017-04-27 Comment on L2/17-069: Tamil Fractions and Symbols — N. Ganesan (L2/17-114)

    • Recommendations to UTC #151 May 2017 on Script Proposals (L2/17-153) (See point 7.)

    • UTC #151 Minutes (L2/17-103) (See D.8 for decision and action items)

  • 2017-05-07 Reconsidering ScriptExtensions added for supporting Tamil fractions — Shriramana Sharma (L2/17-158)

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

    • UTC #152 Minutes (L2/17-222) (See B.14.4 for decision and action items)

  • 2017-06-01 Feedback on New Indic category for 0BFA Tamil Number Sign — Shriramana Sharma (L2/17-178)

    • UTC #152 Minutes (L2/17-222) (See B.14.2 for decision and action items)

  • 2017-08-17 Letter to T.K.Ramahandran Re: U+1133B COMBINING BINDU BELOW — UTC / Lisa Moore (L2/17-302)

  • 2018-01-24 The two ways to represent Tamil Shri — Roozbeh Pournader (L2/18-054)

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

  • 2018-04-25 Tamil Shrii Conjunct: Comment on L2/18-054 — N. Ganesan (L2/18-136)

  • 2018-04-30 Tamil SHRII Conjunct - comment — N. Ganesan (L2/18-172)

    • UTC #156 Minutes (L2/18-183) (See D.4.1 for decision and action items)

  • 2018-06-25 TAMIL homograph sequences for addition to chapter 12 — Asmus Freytag (L2/18-207)

    • Recommendations to UTC #156 July 2018 on Script Proposals (L2/18-241) (See point 12.)

    • UTC #156 Minutes (L2/18-183) (See D.4.2 for decision and action items)

  • 2018-12-02 Comment on spelling of 11FD8 character name — Marc Lodewijck (L2/18-336)

    • Recommendations to UTC #158 January 2019 on Script Proposals (L2/19-047) (See point 14.)

    • UTC #158 Minutes (L2/19-008) (See B.11.10.1.2 for decision and action items)

  • 2019-04-19 Request to change Annotation of U+11FEC and U+11FED in Tamil Supplementary Block — Naga Ganesan (L2/19-117)

    • UTC #159 Minutes (L2/19-122) (See D.4 for decision and action items)

  • 2019-04-29 Response to L2/19-117 on Tamil annotations — Shriramana Sharma (L2/19-184)

    • UTC #159 Minutes (L2/19-122) (See D.4 for decision and action items)

  • 2022-02-07 Comments on Public Review Issues (Jan 18, 2022 - April 11, 2022) ScriptExtensions.txt — Elango Cheran (L2/22-063)

    • Recommendations to UTC #171 April 2022 on Script Proposals (L2/22-068) (See point 25.)

  • 2022-06-07 Proposal to Add Data for Pairs of Identical sequences — Asmus Freytag (L2/22-108)

  • 2022-06-14 Response to PRI 451 — Asmus Freytag (L2/22-114)

    • UTC #172 Minutes (L2/22-121) (See F.3 for decision and action items)