Unicode

Unicode refers to is a coding system for all the world's writing systems, and also includes guidelines for implementation. It also refers to the Unicode Consortium, which manages and promotes the standard.

The characters in Unicode standard (version 5.0 as of late 2006) are also included in the ISO-10646 standard (the characters encoded in Unicode and ISO 10646 are sometimes called "Universal Character Set."

More information is available at:

• The Unicode website: http://www.unicode.org/
• Hapax (en français): http://www.hapax.qc.ca/
• Wikipedia
  • (EN): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode
  • (FR): http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode
  • (PT): http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicod

Writing systems used in Africa and Unicode

The following writing systems that are used in Africa are encoded in Unicode:

• Latin (with extended characters and diacritics used in many African languages)
• Arabic (with some modifications used in African language transcription)
• Ethiopic/Ge'ez
• Tifinagh
• Osmanya
• N'Ko

The following are not yet encoded:

• Vai (work in progress)
• KiKaKui
• Bamum
• Mandombe

Information on fonts encoded in Unicode

See:

• Unicode fonts list
• The section on Fonts on the Localisation (L10n) tools page.

See also

• Unicode Consortium
• Unicode fonts
• Unicode mail list