Latin Extended-B


Latin Extended-B is the fourth block of the Unicode Standard. It has been included since version 1.0, where it was only allocated to the code points U+0180..U+01FF and contained 113 characters. During unification with ISO 10646 for version 1.1, the block was expanded, and another 35 characters were added. In version 3.0 and later, the last 60 available code points in the block were assigned.

Character table

Subheadings

The Latin Extended-B block contains ten subheadings for groups of characters: Non-European and historic Latin, African letters for clicks, Croatian digraphs matching Serbian Cyrillic letters, Pinyin diacritic-vowel combinations, Phonetic and historic letters, Additions for Slovenian and Croatian, Additions for Romanian, Miscellaneous additions, Additions for Livonian, and Additions for Sinology. The Non-European and historic, African clicks, Croatian digraphs, Pinyin, and the first part of the Phonetic and historic letters were present in Unicode 1.0; additional Phonetic and historic letters were added for version 3.0; and other Phonetic and historic, as well as the rest of the sub-blocks were the characters added for version 1.1.

Non-European and historic Latin

The Non-European and historic Latin subheading contains the first 64 characters of the block, and includes various variant letters for use in Zhuang, Americanist phonetic transcription, African languages, and other Latin script alphabets. It does not contain any standard letters with diacritics.

African letters for clicks

The four African letters for clicks are used in Khoisan orthography.

Croatian digraphs matching Serbian Cyrillic letters

The Croatian digraphs matching Serbian Cyrillic letters are three sets of three case mappings of Latin digraphs used for compatibility with Cyrillic texts, the difference between the Croatian and Serbian languages largely being Latin vs. Cyrillic writing.

Pinyin diacritic-vowel combinations

The 16 Pinyin diacritic-vowel combinations are used to represent the standard Mandarin Chinese vowel sounds with tone marks.

Phonetic and historic letters

The 35 Phonetic and historic letters are largely various standard and variant Latin letters with diacritic marks.

Additions for Slovenian and Croatian

The 24 Additions for Slovenian and Croatian are all standard Latin letters with unusual diacritics, like the double grave and inverted breve.

Additions for Romanian

The Additions for Romanian are 4 characters that were erroneously unified as having a cedilla, when they have a comma below. The conflation of S and T with cedilla vs. comma below continues to plague Romanian language implementation up to the present.

Miscellaneous additions

The Miscellaneous additions subheading contains 39 characters of various description and origin.

Additions for Livonian

The Additions for Livonian are 10 letters with diacritics for writing the Livonian language.

Additions for Sinology

The Additions for Sinology are three lowercase letters with curls used in the study of classical Chinese language.

Additions for Africanist linguistics

Additions for Sencoten

The Additions for Sencoten are 5 letters with strokes for writing Saanich.

Number of letters

The following table shows the number of letters in the Latin Extended-B block.
Type of subheadingNumber of symbolsRange of characters
Non-European and historic Latin64 various letters for use in Zhuang, Americanist phonetic transcription, African languages, and other Latin script alphabets.U+0180 to U+01BF
African letters for clicksFour African letters for clicks are used in Khoisan orthography.U+01C0 to U+01C3
Croatian digraphs matching Serbian Cyrillic lettersThree sets of three case mappings of Latin digraphs used for compatibility with Cyrillic texts.U+01C4 to U+01CC
Pinyin diacritic-vowel combinationsSixteen diacritic-vowel combinations which are used to represent the standard Mandarin Chinese vowel sounds with tone marks.U+01CD to U+01DC
Phonetic and historic letters35 Phonetic and historic letters which are largely various standard and variant Latin letters with diacritic marks.U+01DD to U+01FF
Additions for Slovenian and Croatian24 Additions for Slovenian and Croatian are all standard Latin letters with unusual diacritics, like the double grave and inverted breve.U+0200 to U+0217
Additions for Romanian4 characters that were erroneously unified as having a cedilla, when they have a comma below.U+0218 to U+021B
Miscellaneous additions39 characters of various description and origin.U+021C to U+0242
Additions for Livonian10 letters with diacritics for writing the Livonian language.U+0243 to U+024C
Additions for SinologyThree lowercase letters with curls used in the study of classical Chinese language.U+024D to U+024F

Compact table

History

The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Latin Extended-B block: