Enclosed Alphanumerics

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"Ⓐ" redirects here. For the symbol for anarchy, see Anarchist symbolism § Circle-A.
"Ⓓ" redirects here. For the political party with that symbol, see Democratic Party (United States).
"Ⓟ" redirects here. For phonorecording copyright symbol, see sound recording copyright symbol.
"Ⓡ" redirects here. For the political party with that symbol, see Republican Party (United States). For the trademark symbol ®, see registered trademark symbol.
"Ⓤ" redirects here. For the kosher food label, see Orthodox Union.
"Ⓥ" redirects here. For the vegan symbol, see Vegetarian and vegan symbolism. For other uses, see V.
"②" and "⑩" redirect here. For the Steinhaus-Moser number ② (mega) or ⑩ (megiston), see Steinhaus–Moser notation.
"⑨" redirects here. For the Touhou Project character, see List of Touhou Project characters § Cirno.
Enclosed Alphanumerics
RangeU+2460..U+24FF
(160 code points)
PlaneBMP
ScriptsCommon
Assigned160 code points
Unused0 reserved code points
Unicode version history
1.0.0 (1991)139 (+139)
3.2 (2002)159 (+20)
4.0 (2003)160 (+1)
Unicode documentation
Code chart ∣ Web page
Note: [1][2]

Enclosed Alphanumerics is a Unicode block of typographical symbols of an alphanumeric within a circle, a bracket or other not-closed enclosure, or ending in a full stop.

It is currently fully allocated. Within the Basic Multilingual Plane, a few additional enclosed numerals are in the Dingbats and the Enclosed CJK Letters and Months blocks. There is also a block with more of these characters in the Supplementary Multilingual Plane named Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement (U+1F100–U+1F1FF), as of Unicode 6.0.

Purpose

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Many of these characters were originally intended for use as bullets for lists.[3] The parenthesized forms are historically based on typewriter approximations of the circled versions.[3] Although these roles have been supplanted by styles and other markup in "rich text" contexts, the characters are included in the Unicode standard "for interoperability with the legacy East Asian character sets and for the occasional text context where such symbols otherwise occur."[3] The Unicode Standard considers these characters to be distinct from characters which are similar in form but specialized in purpose, such as the circled C, P or R characters which are defined as copyright and trademark symbols or the circled a used for an at sign.[3]

A circled s (Ⓢ) was used in documents circa 1900 printed by German missionaries, especially the Basel Mission, in the Malayalam language to denote a ditto mark.[4]

Block

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Enclosed Alphanumerics[1]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+246x ① ② ③ ④ ⑤ ⑥ ⑦ ⑧ ⑨ ⑩ ⑪ ⑫ ⑬ ⑭ ⑮ ⑯
U+247x ⑰ ⑱ ⑲ ⑳ ⑴ ⑵ ⑶ ⑷ ⑸ ⑹ ⑺ ⑻ ⑼ ⑽ ⑾ ⑿
U+248x ⒀ ⒁ ⒂ ⒃ ⒄ ⒅ ⒆ ⒇ ⒈ ⒉ ⒊ ⒋ ⒌ ⒍ ⒎ ⒏
U+249x ⒐ ⒑ ⒒ ⒓ ⒔ ⒕ ⒖ ⒗ ⒘ ⒙ ⒚ ⒛ ⒜ ⒝ ⒞ ⒟
U+24Ax ⒠ ⒡ ⒢ ⒣ ⒤ ⒥ ⒦ ⒧ ⒨ ⒩ ⒪ ⒫ ⒬ ⒭ ⒮ ⒯
U+24Bx ⒰ ⒱ ⒲ ⒳ ⒴ ⒵ Ⓐ Ⓑ Ⓒ Ⓓ Ⓔ Ⓕ Ⓖ Ⓗ Ⓘ Ⓙ
U+24Cx Ⓚ Ⓛ Ⓜ Ⓝ Ⓞ Ⓟ Ⓠ Ⓡ Ⓢ Ⓣ Ⓤ Ⓥ Ⓦ Ⓧ Ⓨ Ⓩ
U+24Dx ⓐ ⓑ ⓒ ⓓ ⓔ ⓕ ⓖ ⓗ ⓘ ⓙ ⓚ ⓛ ⓜ ⓝ ⓞ ⓟ
U+24Ex ⓠ ⓡ ⓢ ⓣ ⓤ ⓥ ⓦ ⓧ ⓨ ⓩ ⓪ ⓫ ⓬ ⓭ ⓮ ⓯
U+24Fx ⓰ ⓱ ⓲ ⓳ ⓴ ⓵ ⓶ ⓷ ⓸ ⓹ ⓺ ⓻ ⓼ ⓽ ⓾ ⓿
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 16.0

Emoji

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The Enclosed Alphanumerics block contains one emoji: U+24C2, the enclosed M used as a symbol for mask works.[5][6]

It defaults to a text presentation and has two standardized variants defined to specify text presentation (U+FE0E VS15) or emoji-style (U+FE0F VS16).[7]

Emoji variation sequences
U+ 24C2
base code point Ⓜ
base+VS15 (text) Ⓜ︎
base+VS16 (emoji) Ⓜ️

History

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The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Enclosed Alphanumerics block:

Version Final code points[a] Count L2 ID WG2 ID Document
1.0.0 U+2460..24EA 139 (to be determined)
L2/11-438[b][c] N4182 Edberg, Peter (2011-12-22), Emoji Variation Sequences (Revision of L2/11-429)
3.2 U+24EB..24FE 20 L2/99-238 Consolidated document containing 6 Japanese proposals, 1999-07-15
N2093 Addition of medical symbols and enclosed numbers, 1999-09-13
L2/00-010 N2103 Umamaheswaran, V. S. (2000-01-05), "8.8", Minutes of WG 2 meeting 37, Copenhagen, Denmark: 1999-09-13—16
L2/00-296 N2256 Sato, T. K. (2000-09-04), Circled Numbers in JIS X 0213
4.0 U+24FF 1 L2/01-480 Muller, Eric (2001-12-14), Proposal to add NEGATIVE CIRCLED DIGIT ZERO
L2/02-193 Muller, Eric (2001-12-14), Proposal to add Negative Circled Digit Zero
L2/02-070 Moore, Lisa (2002-08-26), "NEGATIVE CIRCLED DIGIT ZERO", Minutes for UTC #90, Consensus: Accept the character NEGATIVE CIRCLED DIGIT ZERO at U+24FF.
  1. ^ Proposed code points and characters names may differ from final code points and names
  2. ^ See also L2/10-458, L2/11-414, L2/11-415, and L2/11-429
  3. ^ Refer to the history section of the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block for additional emoji-related documents

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Unicode character database". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  2. ^ "Enumerated Versions of The Unicode Standard". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  3. ^ a b c d The Unicode Standard, 6.0.1
  4. ^ Joseph Muliyil; M Krishnan (1904). "Contents". The New Malayalam Reader (in Malayalam). Mangalore: Basel Mission Book and Tract Repository. p. vii.
  5. ^ "UTR #51: Unicode Emoji". Unicode Consortium. 2023-09-05.
  6. ^ "UCD: Emoji Data for UTR #51". Unicode Consortium. 2023-02-01.
  7. ^ "UTS #51 Emoji Variation Sequences". The Unicode Consortium.
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