ISO 15924

Template:Short description ISO 15924, Codes for the representation of names of scripts, is an international standard defining codes for writing systems or scripts (a "set of graphic characters used for the written form of one or more languages"). Each script is given both a four-letter code and a numeric code.^[1]

Where possible the codes are derived from ISO 639-2, where the name of a script and the name of a language using the script are identical (example: Gujarātī ISO 639 guj, ISO 15924 Gujr). Preference is given to the 639-2 Bibliographical codes, which is different from the otherwise often preferred use of the Terminological codes.^[1]

4-letter ISO 15924 codes are incorporated into the IANA Language Subtag Registry for IETF language tags and so can be used in file formats that make use of such language tags. For example, they can be used in HTML and XML to help Web browsers determine which typeface to use for foreign text. This way one could differentiate, for example, between Serbian written in the Cyrillic (sr-Cyrl) or Latin (sr-Latn) script, or mark romanized or transliterated text as such.

Maintenance

ISO appointed the Unicode Consortium as the Registration Authority (RA) for the standard. The RA is responsible for appointing a registrar who works with a Joint Advisory Committee (JAC) in developing and implementing the standard. The registrar from 2004 to 2018 was Michael Everson, and from January 2019 the registrar has been Markus Scherer of Google.^[2] The JAC consists of six members: one representative of the RA (Markus Scherer), one representative of ISO 639-2 (Randall K. Barry of the Library of Congress), one representative of ISO/TC 37 (Christian Galinski), one representative of ISO/TC 46 (Peeter Päll), and two representatives of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 (Rick McGowan and Jan Kučera, both affiliated with the Unicode Consortium).^[3]

Script codes

Numeric ranges

Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.000–099 Hieroglyphic and cuneiform scripts
Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.100–199 Right-to-left alphabetic scripts
Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.200–299 Left-to-right alphabetic scripts
Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.300–399 Alphasyllabic scripts
Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.400–499 Syllabic scripts
Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.500–599 Ideographic scripts
Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.600–699 Undeciphered scripts
Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.700–799 Shorthands and other notations^[4]
Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.800–899 (unassigned)
Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.900–999 Private use, alias, special codes^[5]

Special codes

Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.Qaaa–Qabx (900–949): 50 Codes reserved for private use (for example, Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.Qaag is defined in LDML to mark Burmese text encoded for the Zawgyi font)^[6]
Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.Zsye 993: Emoji
Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.Zinh 994: Code for inherited script^[a]
Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.Zmth 995: Mathematical notation
Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.Zsym 996: Symbols
Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.Zxxx 997: Code for unwritten documents
Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.Zyyy 998: Code for undetermined script
Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.Zzzz 999: Code for uncoded script

Exceptionally reserved codes

Two four-letter codes are reserved at the request of the Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) project:^[7]

Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.Root: Reserved for the language-neutral base of the CLDR locale tree
Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.True: Reserved for the Boolean value "true"

List of codes

|- class="sortbottom" | colspan="9" | Notes

^
ISO 15924 publications As of 24 April 2025^[update]
^
ISO 15924 Normative text file As of 24 April 2025^[update]
^
ISO 15924 Changes (including Aliases for Unicode; as of 24 April 2025^[update])
^
Unicode version Template:Unicode version
^
Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Unicode 17.0 Character Code Charts".
^
Unicode uses the "Property Value Alias" (Alias) as the script-name. These Alias names are part of Unicode and are published informatively next to ISO 15924. An alias script name may be used in a character name: Palm, Palmyrene → Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.U+10860 𐡠 Script error: No such module "Unicode data"..
^
In Unicode, the Phoenician script is intended for the representation of text in Paleo-Hebrew, Archaic Phoenician, Phoenician, Early Aramaic, Late Phoenician cursive, Phoenician papyri, Siloam Hebrew, Hebrew seals, Ammonite, Moabite, and Punic.^[v]

|- class="sortbottom" | colspan="9" | References

Page Template:Reflist/styles.css has no content.

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."SEI List of Scripts Not Yet Encoded". Unicode Consortium. March 2023. Retrieved 2023-09-25.
^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Unicode Pipeline § Code Points Provisionally Assigned for Mature Proposals". Unicode Consortium. 2023-09-12. Retrieved 2023-09-25.
^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Michael Everson (1997-09-18). "Proposal to encode Klingon in Plane 1 of ISO/IEC 10646-2". Archived from the original on 2024-02-13.
^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.The Unicode Consortium (2001-08-14). "Approved Minutes of the UTC 87 / L2 184 Joint Meeting".
^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Middle East-II, Ancient Scripts". The Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 2025-09-21.

|}

Relations to other standards

The following standards are referred to as indispensable by ISO 15924.

ISO 639-2:1998 Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code
ISO/IEC 9541-1:1991 Information technology — Font information interchange — Part 1: Architecture
ISO/IEC 10646-1:2020 Information technology — Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS)

For definition of font and glyph the standard refers to

ISO/IEC 9541-1:1991

Around 160 scripts are defined in Unicode. Through a linkpin called "Property Value Alias", Unicode has made a 1:1 connection between a script defined, and its ISO 15924 standard. See Script (Unicode).

Notes

Page Template:Reflist/styles.css has no content.

^ According to the Unicode Standard, Annex #24, version 13.0.0 Inherited is the Unicode script property value of "characters that may be used with multiple scripts, and that inherit their script from a preceding base character. These include nonspacing combining marks and enclosing combining marks, as well as U+200C ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER and U+200D ZERO WIDTH JOINER." The value Inherited is described as matching the ISO 15924 code Zinh.

References

Page Template:Reflist/styles.css has no content.

^ ^a ^b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."ISO 15924:2004". Retrieved 2011-06-21.
^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."ISO 15924 Registration Authority". Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Joint Advisory Committee ISO 15924/RA-JAC". Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
^ In July, 2010, Duployan shorthand was assigned code 755, even though the 700-799 range still carried its original designation of (unassigned). Shortly thereafter, Revision 1.1 clarified that codes in the 700s were reserved for "Shorthands and other notations", although that revision is only provisional until it can be confirmed by governing committees.
^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."ISO 15924:2004 Information and documentation — Codes for the representation of names of scripts". Unicode Consortium. 2004-01-09.
^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Davis, Mark (2023-10-25). "Unicode Locale Data Markup Language (LDML)". unicode.org. Retrieved 11 December 2023. Qaag is a special script code for identifying the non-standard use of Myanmar characters for display with the Zawgyi font. The purpose of the code is to enable migration to standard, interoperable use of Unicode by providing an identifier for Zawgyi for tagging text, applications, input methods, font tables, transformations, and other mechanisms used for migration.
^ ^a ^b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."ISO 15924:2004 – Codes for the representation of names of scripts". Unicode. 2025.

External links

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[cnote_a_grp_ISO_Unicode] 
ISO 15924 publications As of 24 April 2025^[update]

[cnote_b_grp_ISO_list] 
ISO 15924 Normative text file As of 24 April 2025^[update]

[cnote_c_grp_ISO_changes] 
ISO 15924 Changes (including Aliases for Unicode; as of 24 April 2025^[update])

[cnote_d_grp_Asof_Unicode_version] 
Unicode version Template:Unicode version

[cnote_e_grp_Unicode_charts] 
Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Unicode 17.0 Character Code Charts".

[cnote_f_grp_Aliases_for_Unicode] 
Unicode uses the "Property Value Alias" (Alias) as the script-name. These Alias names are part of Unicode and are published informatively next to ISO 15924. An alias script name may be used in a character name: Palm, Palmyrene → Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.U+10860 𐡠 Script error: No such module "Unicode data"..

[cnote_g_grp_Scripts] 
In Unicode, the Phoenician script is intended for the representation of text in Paleo-Hebrew, Archaic Phoenician, Phoenician, Early Aramaic, Late Phoenician cursive, Phoenician papyri, Siloam Hebrew, Hebrew seals, Ammonite, Moabite, and Punic.^[v]

[uniproposed-9] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."SEI List of Scripts Not Yet Encoded". Unicode Consortium. March 2023. Retrieved 2023-09-25.

[pipeline_mature-10] Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Unicode Pipeline § Code Points Provisionally Assigned for Mature Proposals". Unicode Consortium. 2023-09-12. Retrieved 2023-09-25.

[11] Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Michael Everson (1997-09-18). "Proposal to encode Klingon in Plane 1 of ISO/IEC 10646-2". Archived from the original on 2024-02-13.

[12] Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.The Unicode Consortium (2001-08-14). "Approved Minutes of the UTC 87 / L2 184 Joint Meeting".

[13] Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Middle East-II, Ancient Scripts". The Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 2025-09-21.

[7] According to the Unicode Standard, Annex #24, version 13.0.0 Inherited is the Unicode script property value of "characters that may be used with multiple scripts, and that inherit their script from a preceding base character. These include nonspacing combining marks and enclosing combining marks, as well as U+200C ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER and U+200D ZERO WIDTH JOINER." The value Inherited is described as matching the ISO 15924 code Zinh.

[ISO-15924:2004-1] Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."ISO 15924:2004". Retrieved 2011-06-21.

[2] Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."ISO 15924 Registration Authority". Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 24 January 2019.

[JAC_info-3] Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Joint Advisory Committee ISO 15924/RA-JAC". Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 24 January 2019.

[4] In July, 2010, Duployan shorthand was assigned code 755, even though the 700-799 range still carried its original designation of (unassigned). Shortly thereafter, Revision 1.1 clarified that codes in the 700s were reserved for "Shorthands and other notations", although that revision is only provisional until it can be confirmed by governing committees.

[5] Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."ISO 15924:2004 Information and documentation — Codes for the representation of names of scripts". Unicode Consortium. 2004-01-09.

[TR35-6] Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Davis, Mark (2023-10-25). "Unicode Locale Data Markup Language (LDML)". unicode.org. Retrieved 11 December 2023. Qaag is a special script code for identifying the non-standard use of Myanmar characters for display with the Zawgyi font. The purpose of the code is to enable migration to standard, interoperable use of Unicode by providing an identifier for Zawgyi for tagging text, applications, input methods, font tables, transformations, and other mechanisms used for migration.

[codelist-8] Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."ISO 15924:2004 – Codes for the representation of names of scripts". Unicode. 2025.

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ISO 15924

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Maintenance

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ISO 15924

Maintenance

Script codes

Numeric ranges

Special codes

Exceptionally reserved codes

List of codes

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See also

Notes

References

External links

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