Unicode Transcriptions	Notes
Glyphs | Samples | Charts | UTF | Forms | Home

Name	Text	Image
Arabic (Arabic)	يونِكود
Arabic (Persian)	یونی‌کُد
Armenian	Յունիկօդ
Bengali	য়ূনিকোড
Bopomofo	ㄊㄨㄥ˅ ㄧˋ ㄇㄚ˅
	ㄨㄢˋ ㄍㄨㄛˊ ㄇㄚ˅
Braille
Buhid
Canadian Aboriginal	ᔫᗂᑰᑦ
Cherokee	ᏳᏂᎪᏛ
Cypriot
Cyrillic (Russian)	Юникод
Deseret (English)	???????
Devanagari (Hindi)	यूनिकोड
Ethiopic	ዩኒኮድ
Georgian	უნიკოდი
Gothic
Greek	Γιούνικοντ
Gujarati	યૂનિકોડ
Gurmukhi	ਯੂਨਿਕੋਡ
Han (Chinese)	统一码
	統一碼
	万国码
	萬國碼
Hangul	유니코드
Hanunoo
Hebrew	יוניקוד
Hebrew (pointed)	יוּנִיקוׁד
Hebrew (Yiddish)	יוניקאָד
Hiragana (Japanese)	ゆにこおど
Katakana (Japanese)	ユニコード
Kannada	ಯೂನಿಕೋಡ್
Khmer	យូនីគោដ
Lao
Latin	Unicode	Unicode
Latin (IPA)	ˈjunɪˌkoːd
Latin (Am. Dict.)	Ūnĭcōde̽
Limbu
Linear B
Malayalam	യൂനികോഡ്
Mongolian
Myanmar
Ogham	ᚔᚒᚅᚔᚉᚑᚇ
Old Italic
Oriya	ୟୂନିକୋଡ
Osmanya
Runic (Anglo-Saxon)	ᛡᚢᚾᛁᚳᚩᛞ
Shavian
Sinhala	යණනිකෞද්
Syriac	ܝܘܢܝܩܘܕ
Tagbanwa
Tagalog
Tai Le
Tamil	யூனிகோட்
Telugu	యూనికోడ్
Thaana
Thai	ยูนืโคด
Tibetan (Dzongkha)	ཨུ་ནི་ཀོཌྲ།
Ugaritic
Yi

Notes:

There are different ways to transcribe the word “Unicode”, depending on the language and script. In some cases there is only one language that customarily uses a given script; in others there are many languages. The goal here is at a minimum to collect at least one transcription for each script in a language customarily written in that script, with more languages if possible. If the transcription is the same for multiple languages in a script, then a single representative language is used.

Still missing are transcriptions for the items above in RED (in at least one language). I would appreciate any other transcriptions, or corrections for the ones listed here. Send to mark3@macchiato.com, using the directions below:

• Supplying Missing Items
  • Most Latin-script languages will follow the spelling, and change the pronunciation. For any that would not, it would be good to have the alternate spelling.
  • For non-Latin scripts the goal is to match the English pronunciation — not spelling. Above is the IPA (in phonemic transcription) that should be matched as closely as possible (without sounding affected in the target language)
  • Text would be best in either the UTF-8 text, or the code points in hex HTML. E.g. either of the following:
    • "Юникод"
    • "Юникод"
    • Note: for supplementary characters, there should be one hex number per code point, not two surrogates:
      • 𐀀 not �&xDC00;
  • If you have a good font, I'd also appreciate a GIF. It should be 96 x 24 bits, with the text centered, in black on white (plus grays if smoothed).
• Other Comments
  • Because some browsers won't handle the text, both text and GIF image are supplied. If you can’t read the text columns, see Display Problems.
  • The Chinese versions (inc. Bopomofo) are translations, not transcriptions, since "transcription in Chinese is pretty lame" [J. Becker].
  • There are other "translations" of Unicode that may be in use, such as the Vietnamese "Thống Nhất Mã".
  • For sample pages in different languages on the Unicode site, see What is Unicode?
  • Americans are not generally used to IPA, and find a variety of different systems in their dictionaries. This one leaves the base letters as they are, and uses diacritics for pronunciation.
• Etymology of Unicode
  • Coined by J. Becker. Not related to previous usages, such as:
    • A telegraphic code in which one word or set of letters represents a sentence or phrase; a telegram or message in this. (late 19th century, OED)
  • According to my references, the prefix "uni" is directly from Latin while the word "code" is through French.
  • The original Indo-European apparently would have been *oino-kau-do ("one strike give"): *kau apparently being related to such English words as: hew, haggle, hoe, hag, hay, hack, caudad, caudal, caudate, caudex, coda, codex, codicil, coward, incus, and Kovač (personal name: "smith").
    • I will leave the exact derivations to the exegetes, but I like the association with "haggle" myself.
• Contributions
  • This draws on contributions or comments from:
    • Dixon Au
    • Joe Becker
    • Maurice Bauhahn
    • Abel Cheung
    • Peter Constable
    • Michael Everson
    • Christopher John Fynn
    • Michael Kaplan
    • George Kiraz
    • Abdul Malik
    • Siva Nataraja
    • Roozbeh Pournader
    • Jonathan Rosenne
    • Jungshik Shin