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Enclosed Alphanumerics is a
Unicode block A Unicode block is one of several contiguous ranges of numeric character codes ( code points) of the Unicode character set that are defined by the Unicode Consortium for administrative and documentation purposes. Typically, proposals such as the ...
of
typographical symbols Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing (leading), and ...
of an
alphanumeric Alphanumericals or alphanumeric characters are a combination of alphabetical and numerical characters. More specifically, they are the collection of Latin letters and Arabic digits. An alphanumeric code is an identifier made of alphanumeric c ...
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 In the Unicode standard, a plane is a continuous group of 65,536 (216) code points. There are 17 planes, identified by the numbers 0 to 16, which corresponds with the possible values 00–1016 of the first two positions in six position hexadecima ...
, 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 In the Unicode standard, a plane is a continuous group of 65,536 (216) code points. There are 17 planes, identified by the numbers 0 to 16, which corresponds with the possible values 00–1016 of the first two positions in six position hexadecimal ...
named Enclosed Alphanumeric Supplement (U+1F100–U+1F1FF), as of
Unicode 6.0 Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, whic ...
.


Purpose

Many of these characters were originally intended for use as bullets for lists.''The Unicode Standard'', 6.0.1 The parenthesized forms are historically based on typewriter approximations of the circled versions. 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." 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. A circled s (Ⓢ) was used in documents circa 1900 printed by German missionaries, especially the
Basel Mission The Basel Mission was a Christian missionary society based in Switzerland. It was active from 1815 to 2001, when it transferred the operative work to , the successor organization of ''Kooperation Evangelischer Kirchen und Missione'' (KEM), found ...
, in the
Malayalam language Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was d ...
to denote a
ditto mark The ditto mark is a shorthand sign, used mostly in hand-written text, indicating that the words or figures above it are to be repeated. The mark is made using 'a pair of apostrophes'; 'a pair of marks used underneath a word'; the symbol (quota ...
.


Block


Emoji

The Enclosed Alphanumerics block contains one emoji: U+24C2, the enclosed M used as a symbol for
mask work Layout designs (topographies) of integrated circuits are a field in the protection of intellectual property. In United States intellectual property law, a "mask work" is a two or three-dimensional layout or topography of an integrated circuit ...
s. 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).


History

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


See also

*
Japanese rebus monogram A Japanese rebus monogram is a monogram in a particular style, which spells a name via a rebus, as a form of Japanese wordplay or visual pun. Today they are most often seen in corporate logos or product logos. These symbols are particularly com ...
* Enclosed C * Enclosed A * Copyright symbol * Enclosed CJK Letters and Months (extends enclosed Arabic decimal numbers to ㊿)


References

{{Unicode navigation Typographical symbols
Alphanumerics Alphanumericals or alphanumeric characters are a combination of alphabetical and numerical characters. More specifically, they are the collection of Latin letters and Arabic digits. An alphanumeric code is an identifier made of alphanumeric ch ...