Basic Latin (Unicode block)

The Basic Latin Unicode block,[3] sometimes informally called C0 Controls and Basic Latin,[4] is the first block of the Unicode standard, and the only block which is encoded in one byte in UTF-8. The block contains all the letters and control codes of the ASCII encoding. It ranges from U+0000 to U+007F, contains 128 characters and includes the C0 controls, ASCII punctuation and symbols, ASCII digits, both the uppercase and lowercase of the English alphabet and a control character.

Basic Latin
or
C0 Controls and Basic Latin
RangeU+0000..U+007F
(128 code points)
PlaneBMP
ScriptsLatin (52 characters)
Common (76 characters)
Major alphabetsEnglish
French
German
Spanish
Vietnamese
Symbol setsArabic numerals
Punctuation
Assigned128 code points
33 Control or Format
Unused0 reserved code points
Source standardsISO/IEC 8859, ISO 646
Unicode version history
1.0.0 (1991)128 (+128)
Unicode documentation
Code chart ∣ Web page
Note: [1][2]

The Basic Latin block was included in its present form from version 1.0.0 of the Unicode Standard, without addition or alteration of the character repertoire.[5] Its block name in Unicode 1.0 was ASCII.[6]

Table of characters

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Code Result Description Acronym
C0 controls
U+0000 Null character NUL
U+0001 Start of Heading SOH
U+0002 Start of Text STX
U+0003 End-of-text character ETX
U+0004 End-of-transmission character EOT
U+0005 Enquiry character ENQ
U+0006 Acknowledge character ACK
U+0007 Bell character BEL
U+0008 Backspace BS
U+0009 Horizontal tab HT
U+000A Line feed LF
U+000B Vertical tab VT
U+000C Form feed FF
U+000D Carriage return CR
U+000E Shift Out SO
U+000F Shift In SI
U+0010 Data Link Escape DLE
U+0011 Device Control 1 DC1
U+0012 Device Control 2 DC2
U+0013 Device Control 3 DC3
U+0014 Device Control 4 DC4
U+0015 Negative-acknowledge character NAK
U+0016 Synchronous Idle SYN
U+0017 End of Transmission Block ETB
U+0018 Cancel character CAN
U+0019 End of Medium EM
U+001A Substitute character SUB
U+001B Escape character ESC
U+001C File Separator FS
U+001D Group Separator GS
U+001E Record Separator RS
U+001F Unit Separator US
ASCII punctuation and symbols
U+0020   Space SP
U+0021 ! Exclamation mark EXC
U+0022 " Quotation mark QUO
U+0023 # Number sign
U+0024 $ Dollar sign
U+0025 % Percent sign
U+0026 & Ampersand
U+0027 ' Apostrophe
U+0028 ( Left parenthesis
U+0029 ) Right parenthesis
U+002A * Asterisk
U+002B + Plus sign
U+002C , Comma
U+002D - Hyphen-minus
U+002E . Full stop or period
U+002F / Solidus or Slash
ASCII digits
U+0030 0 Digit Zero
U+0031 1 Digit One
U+0032 2 Digit Two
U+0033 3 Digit Three
U+0034 4 Digit Four
U+0035 5 Digit Five
U+0036 6 Digit Six
U+0037 7 Digit Seven
U+0038 8 Digit Eight
U+0039 9 Digit Nine
ASCII punctuation and symbols
U+003A : Colon
U+003B ; Semicolon
U+003C < Less-than sign
U+003D = Equal sign
U+003E > Greater-than sign
U+003F ? Question mark
U+0040 @ At sign or Commercial at
Uppercase Latin alphabet
U+0041 A Latin Capital letter A
U+0042 B Latin Capital letter B
U+0043 C Latin Capital letter C
U+0044 D Latin Capital letter D
U+0045 E Latin Capital letter E
U+0046 F Latin Capital letter F
U+0047 G Latin Capital letter G
U+0048 H Latin Capital letter H
U+0049 I Latin Capital letter I
U+004A J Latin Capital letter J
U+004B K Latin Capital letter K
U+004C L Latin Capital letter L
U+004D M Latin Capital letter M
U+004E N Latin Capital letter N
U+004F O Latin Capital letter O
U+0050 P Latin Capital letter P
U+0051 Q Latin Capital letter Q
U+0052 R Latin Capital letter R
U+0053 S Latin Capital letter S
U+0054 T Latin Capital letter T
U+0055 U Latin Capital letter U
U+0056 V Latin Capital letter V
U+0057 W Latin Capital letter W
U+0058 X Latin Capital letter X
U+0059 Y Latin Capital letter Y
U+005A Z Latin Capital letter Z
ASCII punctuation and symbols
U+005B [ Left Square Bracket
U+005C \ Backslash [A]
U+005D ] Right Square Bracket
U+005E ^ Circumflex accent
U+005F _ Low line
U+0060 ` Grave accent
Lowercase Latin alphabet
U+0061 a Latin Small Letter A
U+0062 b Latin Small Letter B
U+0063 c Latin Small Letter C
U+0064 d Latin Small Letter D
U+0065 e Latin Small Letter E
U+0066 f Latin Small Letter F
U+0067 g Latin Small Letter G
U+0068 h Latin Small Letter H
U+0069 i Latin Small Letter I
U+006A j Latin Small Letter J
U+006B k Latin Small Letter K
U+006C l Latin Small Letter L
U+006D m Latin Small Letter M
U+006E n Latin Small Letter N
U+006F o Latin Small Letter O
U+0070 p Latin Small Letter P
U+0071 q Latin Small Letter Q
U+0072 r Latin Small Letter R
U+0073 s Latin Small Letter S
U+0074 t Latin Small Letter T
U+0075 u Latin Small Letter U
U+0076 v Latin Small Letter V
U+0077 w Latin Small Letter W
U+0078 x Latin Small Letter X
U+0079 y Latin Small Letter Y
U+007A z Latin Small Letter Z
ASCII punctuation and symbols
U+007B { Left Curly Bracket
U+007C | Vertical bar
U+007D } Right Curly Bracket
U+007E ~ Tilde
Control character
U+007F Delete DEL
A The letter U+005C (\) may show up as a Yen(¥) or Won(₩) sign in Japanese/Korean fonts mistaking Unicode (especially UTF-8) as a legacy character set which replaced the backslash with these signs.[7]

Subheadings

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The C0 Controls and Basic Latin block contains six subheadings.[8]

C0 controls

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The C0 Controls, referred to as C0 ASCII control codes in version 1.0, are inherited from ASCII and other 7-bit and 8-bit encoding schemes. The Alias names for C0 controls are taken from the ISO/IEC 6429:1992 standard.[8]

ASCII punctuation and symbols

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This subheading refers to standard punctuation characters, simple mathematical operators, and symbols like the dollar sign, percent, ampersand, underscore, and pipe.[8]

ASCII digits

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The ASCII Digits subheading contains the standard European number characters 1–9 and 0.[8]

Uppercase Latin alphabet

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The Uppercase Latin alphabet subheading contains the standard 26-letter unaccented Latin alphabet in the majuscule.[8]

Lowercase Latin alphabet

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The Lowercase Latin Alphabet subheading contains the standard 26-letter unaccented Latin alphabet in the minuscule.[8]

Control character

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The Control Character subheading contains the "Delete" character.[8]

Number of symbols, letters and control codes

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The table below shows the number of letters, symbols and control codes in each of the subheadings in the C0 Controls and Basic Latin block.

Subheading Number of symbols Range of characters
C0 controls 32 control codes U+0000 to U+001F
ASCII punctuation and symbols 33 punctuation marks and symbols U+0020 to U+002F, U+003A to U+0040, U+005B to U+0060 and U+007B to U+007E
ASCII digits 10 digits U+0030 to U+0039
Uppercase Latin Alphabet 26 unaccented Latin letters in the majuscule. U+0041 to U+005A
Lowercase Latin Alphabet 26 unaccented Latin letters in the minuscule. U+0061 to U+007A
Control character 1 control code containing the "Delete" character. U+007F

Chart

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C0 Controls and Basic Latin[a]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+000x NUL SOH STX ETX EOT ENQ ACK BEL  BS   HT   LF   VT   FF   CR   SO   SI 
U+001x DLE DC1 DC2 DC3 DC4 NAK SYN ETB CAN  EM  SUB ESC  FS   GS   RS   US 
U+002x  SP  ! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . /
U+003x 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ?
U+004x @ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O
U+005x P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [ \ ] ^ _
U+006x ` a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o
U+007x p q r s t u v w x y z { | } ~ DEL
  1. ^ As of Unicode version 16.0

Variants

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Several of the characters are defined to render as a standardized variant if followed by variant indicators.

A variant is defined for a zero with a short diagonal stroke: U+0030 DIGIT ZERO, U+FE00 VS1 (0︀).[9][10]

Twelve characters (#, *, and the digits) can be followed by U+FE0E VS15 or U+FE0F VS16 to create emoji variants.[11][12][13][14] They are keycap base characters, for example #️⃣ (U+0023 NUMBER SIGN U+FE0F VS16 U+20E3 COMBINING ENCLOSING KEYCAP). The VS15 version is "text presentation" while the VS16 version is "emoji-style".[10]

Emoji variation sequences
U+ 0023 002A 0030 0031 0032 0033 0034 0035 0036 0037 0038 0039
base # * 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
base+VS15+keycap #︎⃣ *︎⃣ 0︎⃣ 1︎⃣ 2︎⃣ 3︎⃣ 4︎⃣ 5︎⃣ 6︎⃣ 7︎⃣ 8︎⃣ 9︎⃣
base+VS16+keycap #️⃣ *️⃣ 0️⃣ 1️⃣ 2️⃣ 3️⃣ 4️⃣ 5️⃣ 6️⃣ 7️⃣ 8️⃣ 9️⃣

History

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

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. ^ "block.txt". The Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 2023-03-23.
  4. ^ "C0 Controls and Basic Latin" (PDF). The Unicode Standard, Version 15.0. Unicode, Inc. 2022. Retrieved March 22, 2023.
  5. ^ The Unicode Standard Version 1.0, Volume 1. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. 1990. ISBN 0-201-56788-1.
  6. ^ "3.8: Block-by-Block Charts" (PDF). The Unicode Standard. version 1.0. Unicode Consortium.
  7. ^ Michael S. Kaplan (2005-09-17). "When is a backslash not a backslash?". Sorting it all Out. Microsoft. Archived from the original on 2010-06-12. Also available at: http://archives.miloush.net/michkap/archive/2005/09/17/469941.html
  8. ^ a b c d e f g "Unicode 6.2 code charts" (PDF). The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
  9. ^ Beeton, Barbara; Freytag, Asmus; Iancu, Laurențiu; Sargent, Murray (2015-10-30). "L2/15-268: Proposal to Represent the Slashed Zero Variant of Empty Set" (PDF).
  10. ^ a b "UTS #51 Emoji Variation Sequences". The Unicode Consortium.
  11. ^ Edberg, Peter (2011-12-22). "L2/11-438: Emoji Variation Sequences (Revision of L2/11-429)" (PDF).
  12. ^ Pournader, Roozbeh (2015-11-01). "L2/15-301: A proposal for 278 standardized variation sequences for emoji" (PDF).
  13. ^ "UTR #51: Unicode Emoji". Unicode Consortium. 2023-09-05.
  14. ^ "UCD: Emoji Data for UTR #51". Unicode Consortium. 2023-02-01.
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