The Unicode CLDR 48 Beta is now available for specification review and integration testing. The release is planned for October 29th, 2025, but any feedback on the specification needs to be submitted well in advance of that date. The beta specification is available at Draft LDML Modifications. See also the Migration section of the new release page.
CLDR provides key building blocks for software to support the world's languages (dates, times, numbers, sort-order, etc.). For example, all major browsers and all modern mobile phones use CLDR for language support. (See Who uses CLDR?)
Via the Survey Tool, contributors supply data for their languages — data that is widely used to support much of the world’s software. This data is also a factor in determining which languages are supported on mobile phones and computer operating systems.
The beta has already been integrated into the development versions of ICU 78, and ICU4X . We would especially appreciate feedback from non-ICU consumers of CLDR data and on Migration issues. Feedback can be filed at CLDR Requesting Changes.
The following are some of the most significant changes to the specification (LDML).
Locale Identifiers and Names
Display Name Elements - Described the usage of the language element menu values core and extension, and alt="menu". Also revamped the description of how to construct names for locale IDs, for clarity.
Misc.
Character Elements - Added new exemplar types.
Person Name Validation - Added guidance for validating person names.
DateTime formats
Element dateTimeFormat - Added a new type relative for relative date/times, such as “tomorrow at 10:00”, and updated the guidelines for using the different dateTimeFormat types.
timeZoneNames Elements Used for Fallback - Added the gmtUnknownFormat to indicate when the timezone is unknown.
Metazone Names - Added usesMetazone to specify which offset is considered standard time and which offset is considered daylight.
Time Zone Format Terminology - Added the Localized GMT format (and removed the Specific location format). This affects the behavior of the z timezone format symbol. There is also now a mechanism for finding the region code from a short timezone identifier, which is used for the non-location formats (generic or specific).
Calendar Data - Specified more precisely the meaning of the era attributes in supplemental data, and how to determine the transition point in time between eras.
Numbers
Plural rules syntax - Added substantial clarifications and new examples. The order of execution is also clearly specified.
Compact Number Formats - Specified the mechanism for formatting compact numbers more precisely.
Rational Numbers - Added support for formatting fractions like 5½.
Units of Measurement
Unit Syntax - Simplified the EBNF product_unit and added an additional well-formedness constraint for mixed units.
Unit Identifier Normalization - Modified the normalization process.
Mixed Units - Modified the guidance for handling precision.
MessageFormat
Syntax and data model errors - Prioritized over other errors.
Default Bidi Strategy - Required and default.
Function :offset - Made Stable. (It was previously draft, and named :math.)
Draft functions :datetime, :date, and :time - Updated to build on top of semantic skeletons.
Draft function :percent - Added.
There are many more changes that are important to implementations, such as changes to certain identifier syntax and various algorithms. See the Modifications section of the specification for details.
For more details see the draft CLDR 48 release page, which has information on the changes to data and structure, accessing the data, reviewing charts of the changes, and — importantly — Migration issues.----------------------------------------------
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