Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...

contains a number of characters that represent various

cultural Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tylor ...

political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studi ...

, and

religious Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

symbols. Most, but not all, of these symbols are in the

Miscellaneous Symbols Miscellaneous Symbols is a Unicode block (U+2600–U+26FF) containing glyphs representing concepts from a variety of categories: astrological, astronomical, chess, dice, musical notation, political symbols, recycling, religious symbols, tri ...

block. The majority of them are treated as graphic symbols that are not

character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

s. Exceptions to this include characters in certain writing systems that are also in use as political or religious symbols, such as 卐 (U+5350), the

swastika The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly in various Eurasian, as well as some African and American cultures, now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo-Nazis. I ...

encoded as a

Chinese character Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as '' kan ...

(although it is also encoded as a religious symbol at U+0FD5); or ॐ (U+0950), the Om symbol which is, strictly speaking, a

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the a ...

ligature. A special case is ﷲ (U+FDF2), which is a special ligature of Arabic script used only for writing of the word ''

Allah Allah (; ar, الله, translit=Allāh, ) is the common Arabic word for God. In the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam. The word is thought to be derived by contraction from '' al- ilāh'', which means "the god", ...

''. This ligature is in the Arabic Presentation Forms-A block, which was only encoded for compatibility and is not recommended for use in regular Arabic text. 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 IPA commonly refers to: * India pale ale, a style of beer * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA may also refer to: Organizations International * Insolvency Practitioner ...

signs not considered letters).

Armenian block

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

Dingbats block

The

Dingbat In typography, a dingbat (sometimes more formally known as a printer's ornament or printer's character) is an ornament, specifically, a glyph used in typesetting, often employed to create box frames, (similar to box-drawing characters) or as ...

s block also contains some symbols with political/religious connotations: :

Geometric Shapes Extended

Other weights of the Greek cross are in

Geometric Shapes Extended Geometric Shapes Extended is a Unicode block containing Webdings/Wingdings symbols, mostly different weights of squares, crosses, and saltires, and different font weight, weights of variously spoked asterisks, Star (glyph), stars, and various colo ...

. :

Enclosed Ideographic Supplement block

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

Miscellaneous Symbols block

The Unicode chart for the

block has a section explicitly labelled "Religious and political symbols": : Elsewhere in the block is: : 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: : 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 The caduceus (☤; ; la, cādūceus, from grc-gre, κηρύκειον "herald's wand, or staff") is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology and consequently by Hermes Trismegistus in Greco-Egyptian mythology. The same staff was also ...

(c.f. U+1F750 🝐 "alchemical symbol for caduceus"), U+2695 ⚕

Staff of Aesculapius In Greek mythology, the Rod of Asclepius (⚕; grc, Ράβδος του Ασκληπιού, , sometimes also spelled Asklepios), also known as the Staff of Aesculapius and as the asklepian, is a serpent-entwined rod wielded by the Greek god A ...

, and U+2625 ☥

Ankh Progressive ankylosis protein homolog (ANK ilosis H omolog) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''ANKH'' gene. This gene encodes a multipass transmembrane protein that is expressed in joints and other tissues and controls pyrophosphate ...

, all of which originate in polytheistic religious traditions.

Symbols and Pictographs Extended-A block

The Unicode chart for the Symbols and Pictographs Extended-A block notes one religious symbol": :

Tibetan block

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

Soyombo block

The

Soyombo symbol The ''Soyombo'' symbol (; mn, Соёмбо, ; from sa, svayambhu) is a special character in the Soyombo alphabet invented by Zanabazar in 1686. The name "Soyombo" is derived from Sanskrit ''svayambhu'' "self-created". It serves as a national ...

is a special character in the

Soyombo alphabet The Soyombo script ( mn, Соёмбо бичиг, ''Soyombo biçig'') is an abugida developed by the monk and scholar Zanabazar in 1686 to write Mongolian. It can also be used to write Tibetan and Sanskrit. A special character of the script, the ...

devised for the

Mongolian language Mongolian is the official language of Mongolia and both the most widely spoken and best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the reside ...

. It appears in several flags of Mongolia. Three forms appear in the Soyombo block. * * *

References

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