Unicode Technical Note #50

KP-Source Property Value History

Version	3
Author	Ken Lunde 小林剣
Date	2025-09-09
This Version	https://www.unicode.org/notes/tn50/tn50-3.html
Previous Version	https://www.unicode.org/notes/tn50/tn50-2.html
Latest Version	https://www.unicode.org/notes/tn50/

Summary

The normative kIRG_KPSource (aka KP-source) property, which is documented in UAX #38, Unicode Han Database (Unihan), was introduced in Unicode Version 3.1.1 (2001), and its property values have changed in subsequent versions of the Unicode Standard. The purpose of this Unicode Technical Note is to document the history of changes to this property whose property values correspond to the DPRK character set standards, KPS 9566 and KPS 10721, along with documenting known issues with mappings and representative glyphs. No one outside of DPRK has ever seen the actual KPS standards, so it is useful to document property value changes that have been made to this property. The KPS 9566 character set standard, whose kIRG_KPSource source prefix is KP0, can be glimpsed through ISO-IR-202:1998 (PDF), which is mirrored in the IRG document register as document IRG N2783.

Status

This document is a Unicode Technical Note. Sole responsibility for its contents rests with the author. Publication does not imply any endorsement by the Unicode Consortium.

For information on Unicode Technical Notes, including criteria for acceptance, see Unicode Technical Notes.

Contents

The body of this Unicode Technical Note is contained in the single-sheet Excel file “tn50-3.xlsx” and the Description section below.

Description

The Unified & Compatibility sheet of the Excel file covers a total of 214 code points, one per row and in increasing code-point order, with property values in columns ranging from Unicode Version 3.1.1 (2001) to 17.0.0 (2025). For cases when a particular version of the Unicode Standard exhibited no changes to kIRG_KPSource property values, a range of version numbers is specified for that column. 57 of the code points correspond to CJK Unified Ideographs in the CJK Unified Ideographs (7), Extension A (5), Extension B (35), Extension C (9), and Extension H (1) blocks, and the remaining 157 code points, which are highlighted in blue, correspond to CJK Compatibility Ideographs in the CJK Compatibility Ideographs (107) and CJK Compatibility Ideographs Supplement (50) blocks. Significant changes are highlighted in red and green. Red signifies a property value that was removed from the code point in subsequent versions of the Unicode Standard. Green signifies either the new code point for a removed property value or its replacement property value in the case of disunification.

The table below provides details about known suboptimal mappings that covers a total of 39 KP-source ideographs, one per row and in increasing source reference order, all of which use the KP1 (aka KPS 10721) source prefix. While their current mappings are considered suboptimal, it has been deemed prudent to leave the mappings as-is without more information.

The table below provides details about known representative glyph issues that covers a total of six KP-source ideograph pairs or triplets, one pair or triplet per row and in increasing source reference order. A brief issue description is provide for each KP-source ideograph pair or triplet. While their current representative glyphs exhibit issues, it has been deemed prudent to leave them as-is without more information.

Another useful resource when researching DPRK character set standards is document IRG N2839R5, which is the sixth version of a reconstructed version of the KPS 10721:2000 standard.

Modifications

The following summarizes modifications from the previous version of this document:

3

• Updated for Unicode Version 17.0.0.
• Added two tables to the Description section to cover suboptimal mappings and known representative glyph issues, respectively, most of which are recorded in document L2/25-013.
• Updated the Summary, Contents, and Description sections.

2

• Updated for Unicode Version 15.1.0.

1

• First version

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