Ideographic Rapporteur Group
Encyclopedia
The Ideographic Rapporteur Group (IRG) advises the Unicode Consortium
and the ISO
/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 on Han character additions to the repertoire of the Unicode
and ISO/IEC 10646-1 (Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set
) character set standards, and on Han unification
. The working members of the IRG are either appointed by member governments, or are invited experts from other countries. IRG members include Mainland China
, Hong Kong
, Macao
, Taipei Computer Association
, Singapore
, Japan
, South Korea
, North Korea
, Vietnam
and USA.
The IRG has contributed several blocks of characters to Unicode/UCS, including the CJK Unified Ideograph
s, CJK Compatibility Ideographs (and Supplement), and CJK Unified Ideographs Extensions A, B, C, and D. CJK Unified Ideographs Extension E is in preparation, as of Unicode 6.0.
Note that the accusation that Unicode may destroy Asian countries’ culture is countered by the fact that decisions on Han Unification are made primarily by Asian experts. Similarly, the fact that the Unicode Consortium and ISO/IEC 10646-1 decided to unify Han characters before the creation of the IRG, is countered by the fact that this decision was made by Asian members of both organizations.
Unicode Consortium
The Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization that coordinates the development of the Unicode standard. Its stated goal is to eventually replace existing character encoding schemes with Unicode and its standard Unicode Transformation Format schemes, claiming that many of the existing...
and the ISO
International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial...
/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 on Han character additions to the repertoire of the Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
and ISO/IEC 10646-1 (Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set
Universal Character Set
The Universal Character Set , defined by the International Standard ISO/IEC 10646, Information technology — Universal multiple-octet coded character set , is a standard set of characters upon which many character encodings are based...
) character set standards, and on Han unification
Han unification
Han unification is an effort by the authors of Unicode and the Universal Character Set to map multiple character sets of the so-called CJK languages into a single set of unified characters. Han characters are a common feature of written Chinese , Japanese , Korean , and—at least historically—other...
. The working members of the IRG are either appointed by member governments, or are invited experts from other countries. IRG members include Mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, Macao
Mação
Mação is a municipality in Portugal with a total area of 400.0 km² and a total population of 7,763 inhabitants.The municipality is composed of eight parishes, and is located in the Santarém District....
, Taipei Computer Association
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
, North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
, Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
and USA.
The IRG has contributed several blocks of characters to Unicode/UCS, including the CJK Unified Ideograph
Ideograph
Ideograph is a term coined by rhetorical scholar and critic Michael Calvin McGee describing the use of particular words and phrases as political language in a way that captures particular ideological positions...
s, CJK Compatibility Ideographs (and Supplement), and CJK Unified Ideographs Extensions A, B, C, and D. CJK Unified Ideographs Extension E is in preparation, as of Unicode 6.0.
Note that the accusation that Unicode may destroy Asian countries’ culture is countered by the fact that decisions on Han Unification are made primarily by Asian experts. Similarly, the fact that the Unicode Consortium and ISO/IEC 10646-1 decided to unify Han characters before the creation of the IRG, is countered by the fact that this decision was made by Asian members of both organizations.