Do you call it soccer or football? Is ⚽ “bola,” “ボール,” or “ كرة?”
The biggest sporting event in the world is underway — keep reading to find out what this could possibly have to do with Unicode, and how you can get involved as well!
Unicode and UNESCO Strengthen Collaboration for the International Decade of Indigenous Languages
Unicode is excited to share that we are deepening our collaboration with UNESCO to advance Indigenous languages online.
Across the world, Indigenous languages face an urgent digital divide: speakers simply cannot participate fully in the digital world. That's a problem Unicode working with stakeholders can help address.
Through our Digitally Disadvantaged Languages (DDL) Working Group, our CLDR Keyboards initiative, and our Adopt-a-Character program, Unicode is working to close that gap. Partnering with UNESCO connects our technical standards work to the broader goals of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022–2032).
Languages are living systems. When they disappear from the digital sphere, they lose a vital lifeline. Together, we're working to make sure that doesn't happen. Learn more about Unicode and UNESCO’s partnership here.
Unicode Technology Workshop 2026 — Exciting Updates!
Program Teaser: A Few of This Year’s Talks and Tutorials
Sessions
- Accessibility Encoded: A Survey of Scripts for Disability Inclusion in the Unicode Standard, with Kyra Ann Dawkins and Helena Kansa (Script Encoding Initiative, UC Berkeley)
- Digital Text, Legacy Tech and the Many Meanings of Identity, with Bríd-Áine Parnell (University of Edinburgh)
- The Tokenizer Comedy: A Catalog of Joyful Failures in LLM Unicode Processing, with Tiffa Foster
- Elamite Scripts: Philology, Typography, and Encoding, with Sina Fakour, Kaveh Ashourinia, and François Desset
- Unicode in Indigenous Language Revitalization: Lessons from the Taíno Community, with Priscilla Colón (Casa Areyto)
Tutorials
- How to Build a LDML-Format Keyboard, with Andrew Glass (Microsoft) and Marc Durdin (SIL)
- Times are Changing: how CLDR Handles Time Zone Updates, with Robert Bastian (Google)
- The Web’s Missing Language Enablement Data: From Script Requirements to Browser Behavior, with Fuqiao Xue (W3C)
- Preparing Next Gen Developers to Enable a Multilingual Internet: The Journey to Integrate the Universal Acceptance Curriculum, with Geraldo Ferreira (ICANN)
Early Bird Registration Now Open Through August 1
For the talks above and much more, register now for Unicode Technology Workshop 2026! Special rates are available for students, academics, and Unicode members, and use code “UTW2026Early” to unlock early-bird pricing until August 1.
🔗 For the latest updates about UTW 2026, visit https://www.unicode.org/events/utw/2026/
We look forward to seeing you there!
Deadlines Approaching: Participate in Unicode
Unicode 18.0 is Now Open for Beta Review Until July 7!
The draft release adds 13,048 new characters, including four new scripts, nine new emoji, mathematical symbols, and currency signs, as well as significant changes related to character properties or algorithms. Learn more on the Unicode blog.
Emoji Submissions Open Until July 31
Unicode is now accepting emoji submissions! Please see the following links to learn more:
Recap of Recent Events
Cherokee and Unicode Webinar
Revisit our May 7th webinar, Cherokee and Unicode: Case Study for Where Language Revitalization Meets Digital Inclusion! Hear from speaker Roy Boney about the history of the Cherokee writing system and its journey to digital support, and important lessons for other communities looking to get their script into Unicode and their language supported on devices.
Watch Videos from UTW 2025
Videos from the sessions and workshops at Unicode Technology Workshop 2025 are now available on YouTube. Check out sessions on topics including automated i18n, bidirectional text, and keyboard layouts, and find the full event program for UTW 2025 here.
Unicode in the World — of Sports!
It’s the summer (or winter, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere) of soccer (or football, if you’re anywhere in the world outside of the US), and Unicode is celebrating! Whatever word you use for it, soccer brings the world together — on the field, we communicate across scripts, borders, and cultures in a language that is universally understood.
On whatever screen you are using, wherever in the world you happen to be at this moment, the Unicode Consortium is making it possible for you to read this. It is the often-invisible technology that underpins global communication. To ensure that end users can seamlessly work, collaborate, communicate, and much more in their native languages around the world, software developers deploy the Unicode Standard and architecture across all software and services — so that whether it’s soccer or football or “footy” to you, you can read natively on your own device.
As this year’s tournament unifies the world over our shared passion for soccer, Unicode is responsible for developing the technology that makes multilingual communication at this massive scale possible. Across the US, Mexico, and Canada alone, more than 400 languages are spoken collectively, with hundreds more spoken across the rest of the competing countries. Representation goes beyond official languages and primary languages — Unicode is working actively to provide encoding and support for billions of people across all scripts and locales, from Norwegian to Tamazight to Nahuatl to Papiamento. Whatever team you and your community are cheering for, and no matter what language you’re cheering in, we are on your side.
Are you rooting for the hosts, #TeamUSA🇺🇸, #TeamMexico🇲🇽, or #TeamCanada🇨🇦? Are you supporting the defending champions #TeamArgentina🇦🇷, #TeamUzbekistan🇺🇿 in its debut, or are you cheering #TeamBrazil🇧🇷 towards its sixth title? Share your team spirit by making a donation of any size to the technology that makes global connection possible. Each dollar will support Unicode’s valuable ongoing work towards universal access to technology and online representation — and to get in on the excitement, submit your donation in honor of your favorite team and results will be posted online. So let’s see: who does #TeamUnicode support?
About the Unicode Consortium
The Unicode Consortium is the premier 501(c)3 non-profit, open source, open standards body for the Internationalization of software and services. It is arguably the most widely deployed software in the world available across 20 billion devices and counting! At its core, Unicode enables people around the world to communicate in any language.
Your contribution may be eligible for a tax deduction. Please consult with a tax advisor for details.
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