N’Ko character tables

This document lists the per-character shaping information needed to shape N’Ko text.

Contents

• NKo character table

• Miscellaneous character table

NKo character table

N’Ko glyphs should be classified as in the following table. Codepoints in the NKo block with no assigned meaning are designated as unassigned in the Unicode category column.

The Joining type column indicates whether each codepoint is defined as joining with adjacent characters on the left side, right side, left and right sides (“DUAL”), or neither side (“NON_JOINING”). Codepoints designated TRANSPARENT in the Joining type column do not join with adjacent characters and, in addition, do not affect the joining behavior of surrounding characters. Non-spacing marks are of type TRANSPARENT. Codepoints designated JOIN_CAUSING force adjacent characters to join.

The Joining group column lists the fundamental letter that the listed codepoint behaves like for joining purposes.

Assigned codepoints with a null in the Joining group column evoke no special behavior from the shaping engine during the join-computation stage.

Note: No codepoints in the NKo block are assigned a non-null Joining group.

The Mark class column indicates the Canonical Combining Class for the codepoint. Marks are assigned non-zero combining classes so that sequences of adjacent marks can be reordered as required by the orthography.

Table 58 N’Ko character table

Codepoint	Unicode category	Joining type	Joining group	Mark class	Glyph
U+07C0	Number	NON_JOINING	null	0	߀ Digit Zero
U+07C1	Number	NON_JOINING	null	0	߁ Digit One
U+07C2	Number	NON_JOINING	null	0	߂ Digit Two
U+07C3	Number	NON_JOINING	null	0	߃ Digit Three
U+07C4	Number	NON_JOINING	null	0	߄ Digit Four
U+07C5	Number	NON_JOINING	null	0	߅ Digit Five
U+07C6	Number	NON_JOINING	null	0	߆ Digit Six
U+07C7	Number	NON_JOINING	null	0	߇ Digit Seven
U+07C8	Number	NON_JOINING	null	0	߈ Digit Eight
U+07C9	Number	NON_JOINING	null	0	߉ Digit Nine
U+07CA	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߊ A
U+07CB	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߋ Ee
U+07CC	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߌ I
U+07CD	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߍ E
U+07CE	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߎ U
U+07CF	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߏ Oo
U+07D0	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߐ O
U+07D1	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߑ Dagbasinna
U+07D2	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߒ N
U+07D3	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߓ Ba
U+07D4	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߔ Pa
U+07D5	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߕ Ta
U+07D6	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߖ Ja
U+07D7	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߗ Cha
U+07D8	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߘ Da
U+07D9	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߙ Ra
U+07DA	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߚ Rra
U+07DB	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߛ Sa
U+07DC	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߜ Gba
U+07DD	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߝ Fa
U+07DE	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߞ Ka
U+07DF	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߟ La
U+07E0	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߠ Na Woloso
U+07E1	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߡ Ma
U+07E2	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߢ Nya
U+07E3	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߣ Na
U+07E4	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߤ Ha
U+07E5	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߥ Wa
U+07E6	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߦ Ya
U+07E7	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߧ Nya Woloso
U+07E8	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߨ Jona Ja
U+07E9	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߩ Jona Cha
U+07EA	Letter	DUAL	null	0	ߪ Jona Ra
U+07EB	Mark [Mn]	TRANSPARENT	null	230	߫ Combining Short High Tone
U+07EC	Mark [Mn]	TRANSPARENT	null	230	߬ Combining Short Low Tone
U+07ED	Mark [Mn]	TRANSPARENT	null	230	߭ Combining Short Rising Tone
U+07EE	Mark [Mn]	TRANSPARENT	null	230	߮ Combining Long Descending Tone
U+07EF	Mark [Mn]	TRANSPARENT	null	230	߯ Combining Long High Tone
U+07F0	Mark [Mn]	TRANSPARENT	null	230	߰ Combining Long Low Tone
U+07F1	Mark [Mn]	TRANSPARENT	null	230	߱ Combining Long Rising Tone
U+07F2	Mark [Mn]	TRANSPARENT	null	220	߲ Combining Nasalization Mark
U+07F3	Mark [Mn]	TRANSPARENT	null	230	߳ Combining Double Dot Above
U+07F4	Letter modifier	NON_JOINING	null	0	ߴ High Tone Apostrophe
U+07F5	Letter modifier	NON_JOINING	null	0	ߵ Low Tone Apostrophe
U+07F6	Symbol	NON_JOINING	null	0	߶ Symbol Oo Dennen
U+07F7	Symbol	NON_JOINING	null	0	߷ Symbol Gbakurunen
U+07F8	Punctuation	NON_JOINING	null	0	߸ Comma
U+07F9	Punctuation	NON_JOINING	null	0	߹ Exclamation Mark
U+07FA	Letter modifier	JOIN_CAUSING	null	0	ߺ Lajanyalan
U+07FB	unassigned
U+07FC	unassigned
U+07FD	Mark [Mn]	TRANSPARENT	null	220	߽ Dantalayan
U+07FE	Symbol	NON_JOINING	null	0	߾ Dorome Sign
U+07FF	Symbol	NON_JOINING	null	0	߿ Taman Sign

Miscellaneous character table

Other important characters that may be encountered when shaping runs of N’Ko text include the dotted-circle placeholder (U+25CC), the combining grapheme joiner (U+034F), the zero-width joiner (U+200D) and zero-width non-joiner (U+200C), the left-to-right text marker (U+200E) and right-to-left text marker (U+200F), and the no-break space (U+00A0).

The dotted-circle placeholder is frequently used when displaying a combining mark in isolation. Real-world text syllables may also use other characters, such as hyphens or dashes, in a similar placeholder fashion; shaping engines should cope with this situation gracefully.

Table 59 Miscellaneous character table

Codepoint	Unicode category	Joining type	Joining group	Mark class	Glyph
U+00A0	Separator	NON_JOINING	null	0	No-break space
U+034F	Other	NON_JOINING	null	0	͏ Combining grapheme joiner
U+200C	Other	NON_JOINING	null	0	‌ Zero-width non-joiner
U+200D	Other	JOIN_CAUSING	null	0	‍ Zero-width joiner
U+200E	Other	NON_JOINING	null	0	‎ Left-to-Right marker
U+200F	Other	NON_JOINING	null	0	‏ Right-to-Left marker
U+2010	Punctuation	NON_JOINING	null	0	‐ Hyphen
U+2011	Punctuation	NON_JOINING	null	0	‑ No-break hyphen
U+2012	Punctuation	NON_JOINING	null	0	‒ Figure dash
U+2013	Punctuation	NON_JOINING	null	0	– En dash
U+2014	Punctuation	NON_JOINING	null	0	— Em dash
U+25CC	Symbol	NON_JOINING	null	0	◌ Dotted circle

The combining grapheme joiner (CGJ) is primarily used to alter the order in which adjacent marks are positioned during the mark-reordering stage, in order to adhere to the needs of a non-default language orthography.

The zero-width joiner (ZWJ) is primarily used to force the usage of the cursive connecting form of a letter even when the context of the adjoining letters would not trigger the connecting form.

For example, to show the initial form of a letter in isolation (such as for displaying it in a table of forms), the sequence “Letter,ZWJ” would be used. To show the medial form of a letter in isolation, the sequence “ZWJ,Letter,ZWJ” would be used.

The right-to-left mark (RLM) and left-to-right mark (LRM) are used by the Unicode bidirectionality algorithm (BiDi) to indicate the points in a text run at which the writing direction changes.

The no-break space is primarily used to display those codepoints that are defined as non-spacing (such as vowel or diacritical marks and “Hamza”) in an isolated context, as an alternative to displaying them superimposed on the dotted-circle placeholder.