ISO 15924, ''Codes for the representation of names of scripts'', is an

international standard An international standard is a technical standard developed by one or more international standards organizations. International standards are available for consideration and use worldwide. The most prominent such organization is the International O ...

defining codes for

writing systems A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independe ...

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. Where possible the codes are derived from

ISO 639-2 ISO 639-2:1998, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code'', is the second part of the ISO 639 International standard, standard, which lists Language code, codes for the representation of the names of languages ...

, 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. 4-letter ISO 15924 codes are incorporated into the

IANA Language Subtag Registry The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS), media types, and other Internet P ...

for

IETF language tag An IETF BCP 47 language tag is a standardized code that is used to identify human languages on the Internet. The tag structure has been standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in ''Best Current Practice (BCP) 47''; the subtags ...

s and so can be used in file formats that make use of such language tags. For example, they can be used in

HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...

and

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

to help

Web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

s determine which

typeface A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...

to use for foreign text. This way one could differentiate, for example, between

Serbian Serbian may refer to: * Pertaining to Serbia in Southeast Europe; in particular **Serbs, a South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans ** Serbian language ** Serbian culture **Demographics of Serbia, includes other ethnic groups within the co ...

written in the

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

(sr-Cyrl) or

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

(sr-Latn) script, or mark

romanized In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and transcription, ...

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one writing system, script to another that involves swapping Letter (alphabet), letters (thus ''wikt:trans-#Prefix, trans-'' + ''wikt:littera#Latin, liter-'') in predictable ways, such as ...

text as such.

Maintenance

ISO appointed the

Unicode Consortium The Unicode Consortium (legally Unicode, Inc.) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization incorporated and based in Mountain View, California, U.S. Its primary purpose is to maintain and publish the Unicode Standard which was developed with the in ...

as the

Registration Authority Registration authorities (RAs) exist for many standards organizations, such as ISO, the Object Management Group, W3C, and others. In general, registration authorities all perform a similar function, in promoting the use of a particular standard ...

(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 Michael Everson (born January 1963) is an American and Irish linguistics, linguist, Character encoding, script encoder, typesetting, typesetter, type designer and Publishing, publisher. He runs a publishing company called Evertype, through which ...

, and from January 2019 the registrar has been Markus Scherer of

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

. The JAC consists of six members: one representative of the RA (Markus Scherer), one representative of

(Randall K. Barry of the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

), one representative of

ISO/TC 37 ISO/TC 37 is a technical committee within the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that prepares Technical standard, standards and other documents concerning methodology and principles for terminology and language resources. IS ...

(Christian Galinski), one representative of ISO/TC 46 (Peeter Päll), and two representatives of

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 Coded character sets is a standardization subcommittee of the Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), that devel ...

(Rick McGowan and Jan Kučera, both affiliated with the Unicode Consortium).

Script codes

Numeric ranges

Hieroglyphic Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters. ...

and

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

scripts *

Right-to-left alphabetic A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independen ...

scripts *

Left-to-right alphabetic A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independen ...

scripts * Alphasyllabic scripts *

Syllabic A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

scripts *

Ideographic An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek 'idea' + 'to write') is a symbol that is used within a given writing system to represent an idea or concept in a given language. (Ideograms are contrasted with phonograms, which indicate sounds of speech ...

scripts * Undeciphered scripts * Shorthands and other notations * (unassigned) * Private use, alias, special codes

Special codes

*: 50 Codes reserved for private use (for example, is defined in LDML to mark Burmese text encoded for the Zawgyi font) *:

Emoji An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis; , ) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram, or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of modern emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from type ...

*: Code for inherited script *:

Mathematical notation Mathematical notation consists of using glossary of mathematical symbols, symbols for representing operation (mathematics), operations, unspecified numbers, relation (mathematics), relations, and any other mathematical objects and assembling ...

Symbols A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise different concep ...

*: Code for unwritten documents *: Code for undetermined script *: Code for uncoded script

Exceptionally reserved codes

Two four-letter codes are reserved at the request of the

Common Locale Data Repository The Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) is a project of the Unicode Consortium to provide locale data in XML format for use in computer applications. CLDR contains locale-specific information that an operating system will typically provide to ...

(CLDR) project: *: Reserved for the language-neutral base of the CLDR locale tree *: Reserved for the

Boolean value In mathematics and mathematical logic, Boolean algebra is a branch of algebra. It differs from elementary algebra in two ways. First, the values of the variables are the truth values ''true'' and ''false'', usually denoted by 1 and 0, whereas ...

"true"

List of codes

This list of codes is from the ISO 15924 standard.

Relations to other standards

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

: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 Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

. 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) In Unicode, a script is a collection of Letter (alphabet), letters and other written signs used to represent textual information in one or more writing systems. Some scripts support only one writing system and Written language, language, for e ...

Notes

References

External links

ISO 15924:2004

ISO 15924 Registration Authority
(

)
Official ISO 15924 code lists

{{DEFAULTSORT:ISO 15924 #15924 Writing systems 2004 introductions

Maintenance

Script codes

Numeric ranges

Special codes

Exceptionally reserved codes

List of codes

Relations to other standards

See also

Notes

References

External links