# M17n and unicode

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/m17n-and-unicode/64419>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [June 25, 2006, 6:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/m17n-and-unicode/64419 "2006-06-25T18:56:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![brad7a0](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/53a042/32.png) [@brad7a0](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/brad7a0)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2006, 6:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/m17n-and-unicode/64419/1 "2006-06-25T18:56:02Z")

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Please forgive my ignorance.

Is m17n a type of unicode? [http://unicode.org](http://unicode.org) makes no mention of it  
that I can see. And [http://m17n.org](http://m17n.org) make no mention of unicode. Why is  
this? In general terms, I think m17n is a type of unicode. Is there a  
political disagreement between them or a technical one?

I ask this because I understand that future versions of Ruby will use  
m17n to address issues that others use unicode to address. Could someone  
who understands this take the time to explain the differences?

Thank you,  
Brad

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**Author:** ![brad7a0](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/53a042/32.png) [@brad7a0](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/brad7a0)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2006, 8:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/m17n-and-unicode/64419/2 "2006-06-25T20:22:00Z")

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On Jun 25, 2006, at 12:56 PM, brad tilley wrote:

> who understands this take the time to explain the differences?
> 
> Thank you,  
> Brad
> 
> –  
> Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/).

Unicode says, lets make ONE universal character set and map all our  
strings into it.

m17n says not every language is the same, not every concept of a  
character is the same, let’s support all the languages and character  
sets we can.

Ruby’s m17n will have support for Unicode, but it will be an option  
for an encoding, not the only encoding.