Unicode European Alphabets

Unicode > European Alphabets

Standard Unicode Disclaimer:
Not all the Unicode characters represented below or in other writeups may be viewable in your browser. In fact, some of the characters may not be viewable in any browser. This is because Unicode is an evolving and ever-growing standard which has the ability to store/represent literally millions of characters and symbols from hundreds of languages and cultures past and present, and not all software has the ability to display all the characters. If your browser does not understand the Unicode value of the character, it will usually display a small square box or a question mark. This is normal and expected behavior, and does not mean there is a problem with this writeup or your web browser. For additional information see Using Unicode on E2. In addition, you may have luck changing your font in the ekw Preferences to something such as "Arial Unicode MS" which has better Unicode support.

The modern European alphabets are derived from or influenced by the original Greek alphabet. The Greek alphabet itself was originally derived from the Phoenician alphabet; however the Greek alphabet was modified to be read from left to right.

The Unicode European alphabets include:

• Latin (includes controls, ligature, supplemental, extended, and additional characters)
• Greek (includes extended characters)
• Coptic (technically Coptic is not European, but it is derived from Greek, and is included in the Unicode Standard as being European)
• Cyrillic (includes supplemental characters)
• Armenian (includes ligature)
• Georgian (includes supplemental characters)
• Plus additional small form variants, alphabetic presentation forms, and halfwidth and fullwidth forms that include selections of the European alphabets (which may also contain other alphabets, scripts, ideograms, etc, but are included for completeness)

Most of these alphabets include both uppercase and lowercase letters and insert spaces to separate words. Some languages use additional diacritical or accent marks to modify the meaning or sound of the letters, some of which define new letters of the alphabet. The International Phonetic Alphabet is an extension of the Latin alphabet which enables it to represent the phonetic sounds of all languages.

Below you will find a list of characters and common punctuation included in the European Alphabets. Where applicable, there are additional links to writeups that include more detailed information for each block of Unicode characters.

NOTE: I have enclosed the characters in <big> tags so that it is easier to see the details of various characters you may not be familiar with.

Controls and Basic Latin (see also Controls and Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended-A, Latin Extended-B, and Latin Extended Additional)

Primary languages that use these characters: English
See also the extended and supplemental Latin character sets below for additional languages based on this Basic Latin set.

HTML Unicode Values: &#1; to &#127; (decimal) / &#x1; to &#x7f; (hexadecimal)

                                                                                           !   "   #   $   %   &   '   (   )   *   +   ,   -   .   /   0   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   :   ;   <   =   >   ?   @   A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M   N   O   P   Q   R   S   T   U   V   W   X   Y   Z   [   \   ]   ^   _   `   a   b   c   d   e   f   g   h   i   j   k   l   m   n   o   p   q   r   s   t   u   v   w   x   y   z   {   |   }   ~     

Controls and Latin-1 Supplement

Primary languages that use these characters (with the addition of the Basic Latin set above): Danish, Dutch, Faroese, Finnish, Flemish, German, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish

HTML Unicode Values: &#128; to &#255; (decimal) / &#x80; to &#xff; (hexadecimal)

€      ‚   ƒ   „   …   †   ‡   ˆ   ‰   Š   ‹   Œ      Ž         ‘   ’   “   ”   •   –   —   ˜   ™   š   ›   œ      ž   Ÿ       ¡   ¢   £   ¤   ¥   ¦   §   ¨   ©   ª   «   ¬   ­   ®   ¯   °   ±   ²   ³   ´   µ   ¶   ·   ¸   ¹   º   »   ¼   ½   ¾   ¿   À   Á      à   Ä   Å   Æ   Ç   È   É   Ê   Ë   Ì   Í   Î   Ï   Ð   Ñ   Ò   Ó   Ô   Õ   Ö   ×   Ø   Ù   Ú   Û   Ü   Ý   Þ   ß   à   á   â   ã   ä   å   æ   ç   è   é   ê   ë   ì   í   î   ï   ð   ñ   ò   ó   ô   õ   ö   ÷   ø   ù   ú   û   ü   ý   þ   ÿ  

Latin Extended A

Primary languages that use these characters (with the addition of the Basic Latin and Latin Extended sets above): Afrikaans, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Esperanto, Estonian, French, Frisian, Greenlandic, Hungarian, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Provencal, Rhaeto-Romanic, Romanian, Romany, Sami, Slovak, Slovenian, Sorbian, Turkish, Welsh, and others

HTML Unicode Values: &#256; to &#383; (decimal) / &#x100; to &#x17f; (hexadecimal)

Ā   ā   Ă   ă   Ą   ą   Ć   ć   Ĉ   ĉ   Ċ   ċ   Č   č   Ď   ď   Đ   đ   Ē   ē   Ĕ   ĕ   Ė   ė   Ę   ę   Ě   ě   Ĝ   ĝ   Ğ   ğ   Ġ   ġ   Ģ   ģ   Ĥ   ĥ   Ħ   ħ   Ĩ   ĩ   Ī   ī   Ĭ   ĭ   Į   į   İ   ı   IJ   ij