Religious and political symbols in Unicode

Unicode contains a number of characters that represent various cultural, political, and religious symbols. Most but not all of these are in the Miscellaneous Symbols block.

Most of them are treated as graphic symbols that are not characters. [1] Exceptions to this include characters in certain writing systems that are also in use as political or religious symbols, such as ࿕ (U+0FD5), the swastika encoded as a Chinese character; or ॐ (U+0950), the Om symbol which is strictly speaking a Devanagari ligature. A special case is ﷲ (U+FDF2), which is a special ligature of Arabic script used only for writing of the word Allah. It is in the Arabic Presentation Forms-A block which was encoded for compatibility only and is not recommended for use in regular Arabic text.[2]

Unicode defines the semantics of a character by its character identity and its normative properties, one of these being the character's general category, given as a two-letter code (e.g. Lu for "uppercase letter"). Characters that fall in the "political or religious" category are given the "general category" So, which is the catch-all category for "Symbol, other", i.e. anything considered a "symbol" which does not fall in any of the three other categories of Sm (mathematical symbols), Sc (currency symbols) or Sk (phonetic modifier symbols, i.e. IPA signs not considered letters).[3]

Armenian block

The Unicode chart for the Armenian block notes two religious symbols:[4]

SymbolCode pointName
֍U+058DRIGHT-FACING ARMENIAN ETERNITY SIGN
֎U+058ELEFT-FACING ARMENIAN ETERNITY SIGN


Dingbats block

The Dingbats block also contains some symbols with political/religious connotations:[5]

SymbolCode pointName
✙U+2719OUTLINED GREEK CROSS
✚U+271AHEAVY GREEK CROSS
✛U+271BOPEN CENTER CROSS
✜U+271CHEAVY OPEN CENTER CROSS
✝U+271DLATIN CROSS
✞U+271ESHADOWED WHITE LATIN CROSS
✟U+271FOUTLINED LATIN CROSS
✠U+2720MALTESE CROSS
✡U+2721STAR OF DAVID

Enclosed Ideographic Supplement block

The Unicode chart for the Enclosed Ideographic Supplement block notes several symbols used for Chinese folk religion:[6]

SymbolCode pointName and notes
🉠U+1F260ROUNDED SYMBOL FOR FU (luck)
🉡U+1F261ROUNDED SYMBOL FOR LU (prosperity)
🉢U+1F262ROUNDED SYMBOL FOR SHOU (longevity)
🉣U+1F263ROUNDED SYMBOL FOR XI (happiness)
🉤U+1F264ROUNDED SYMBOL FOR SHUANGXI (double happiness, love and marriage)
🉥U+1F265ROUNDED SYMBOL FOR CAI (wealth)

Miscellaneous Symbols block

The Unicode chart for the Miscellaneous Symbols block has a section explicitly labelled "Religious and political symbols":[7]

TextEmojiCode pointName and notes
☦︎☦️U+2626ORTHODOX CROSS
☧U+2627CHI RHO = Constantine's cross, Christogram → 2CE9 ⳩ coptic symbol khi ro
☨U+2628CROSS OF LORRAINE
☩U+2629CROSS OF JERUSALEM → 1F70A alchemical symbol for vinegar
☪︎☪️U+262ASTAR AND CRESCENT
☫U+262BFARSI SYMBOL = symbol of Iran (1.0)
☬U+262CADI SHAKTI = Gurmukhi khanda - ਖੰਡਾ
☭U+262DHAMMER AND SICKLE
☮︎☮️U+262EPEACE SYMBOL
☯︎☯️U+262FYIN YANG → 0FCA ࿊ Tibetan symbol nor bu nyis -khyil

The emoji variants have U+FE0F after the symbol.

Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block

The Unicode chart for the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block notes many religious symbols:[8]

TextEmojiCode pointName and notes
📿︎📿️U+1F4FFPRAYER BEADS
🕀U+1F540CIRCLED CROSS POMMEE (Orthodox typicon symbol for great feast service)
🕁U+1F541CROSS POMMEE WITH HALF-CIRCLE BELOW (Orthodox typicon symbol for vigil service)
🕂U+1F542CROSS POMMEE (Orthodox typicon symbol for Polyeleos)
🕃U+1F543NOTCHED LEFT SEMICIRCLE WITH THREE DOTS (Orthodox typicon symbol for lower rank feast)
🕄U+1F544NOTCHED RIGHT SEMICIRCLE WITH THREE DOTS (Orthodox typicon symbol for lower rank feast)
🕅U+1F545SYMBOL FOR MARKS CHAPTER (Orthodox typicon symbol for difficult sections)
🕆U+1F546WHITE LATIN CROSS = cross outline
🕇U+1F547HEAVY LATIN CROSS
🕈U+1F548CELTIC CROSS
🕉︎🕉️U+1F549OM SYMBOL (generic symbol independent of Devanagari font)
🕊︎🕊️U+1F54ADOVE OF PEACE = peace
🕋︎🕋️U+1F54BKAABA
🕌︎🕌️U+1F54CMOSQUE
🕍︎🕍️U+1F54DSYNAGOGUE
🕎︎🕎️U+1F54EMENORAH WITH NINE BRANCHES = hanukiah

Ostensibly religious symbols are, however, not limited to this section, as the same chart has another short section of two characters labelled "Syriac cross symbols", with the explanatory gloss "These symbols are used in liturgical texts of Syriac-speaking churches". Another short section of two symbols is headed "Medical and healing symbols", including U+2624 ☤ Caduceus (c.f. U+1F750 🝐 "alchemical symbol for caduceus"), U+2695 ⚕ "staff of Aesculapius and U+2625 ☥ Ankh, all of which originate in religious (polytheistic) tradition.[8]

Tibetan block

The Unicode chart for the Tibetan block notes several religious symbols:[9]

SymbolCode pointName and notes
࿕U+0FD5RIGHT-FACING SVASTI SIGN = gyung drung nang -khor (symbol of good luck and well-being in India)
࿖U+0FD6LEFT-FACING SVASTI SIGN = gyung drung phyi -khor
࿗U+0FD7RIGHT-FACING SVASTI SIGN WITH DOTS = gyung drung nang -khor bzhi mig can
࿘U+0FD8LEFT-FACING SVASTI SIGN WITH DOTS = gyung drung phyi -khor bzhi mig can

References

  1. ↑ Jukka Korpela, Unicode Explained, O'Reilly, 2006, p. 13.
  2. ↑ "FAQ: Middle Eastern Scripts and Languages". Unicode Consortium.
  3. ↑ "In a set containing ☯, ☮ and ☭, there is something for every taste — within the limits of political correctness, of course, and a certain technocratic ethical standard. Unicode has not yet created a category for ostentatious religious suymbols, but one should not be long in coming..." Yannis Haralambous, P. Scott Horne (trans.), Fonts & Encodings, O'Reilly, 2007, p. 102
  4. ↑ "Character Code Chart for Armenian" (PDF). Unicode Consortium.
  5. ↑ "Character Code Chart for Dingbats" (PDF). Unicode Consortium.
  6. ↑ "Character Code Chart for Enclosed Ideographic Supplement" (PDF). Unicode Consortium.
  7. ↑ "Character Code Chart for Miscellaneous Symbols" (PDF). Unicode Consortium.
  8. 1 2 "Character Code Chart for Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs" (PDF). Unicode Consortium.
  9. ↑ "Character Code Chart for Tibetan" (PDF). Unicode Consortium.
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