CLDR 47 Release Note

No.	Date	Rel. Note	Data	Charts	Spec	Delta	GitHub Tag	Delta DTD	CLDR JSON
47	2025-04-XX	v47	CLDR47	Charts47	LDML47	Δ47	release-47 release-47-alpha2	ΔDtd47	47.0.0 47.0.0-ALPHA2

This is an alpha version of CLDR v47.

Overview

Unicode CLDR provides key building blocks for software supporting the world’s languages. CLDR data is used by all major software systems (including all mobile phones) for their software internationalization and localization, adapting software to the conventions of different languages.

CLDR 47 focused on MessageFormat 2.0 and tooling for an expansion of DDL support. It was a closed cycle: locale data changes were limited to bug fixes and the addition of new locales, mostly regional variants.

Changes

The most significant changes in this release are:

• New locales:
  • Core data for Coptic (cop), Haitian Creole (ht)
  • Locale data for 11 English locales and Cantonese (Macau) (yue_Hant_MO)
• Updated time zone data to tzdata 2025a
• RBNF (Rule Based Number Formatting): Number spellout data improvements for multiple languages
• Assorted transforms improvements
• Updated and revised population data
• Incorporates all changes from CLDR v46.1.
  • CLDR v46.1 was a special release, which many users of CLDR (including ICU) have not updated to. So the listed changes are relative to CLDR v46.0. v46.1 included the following:
  • Message Format 2.0 (Final Candidate)
  • More explicit well-formedness and validity constraints for unit of measurement identifiers
  • Addition of derived emoji annotations that were missing: emoji with skin tones facing right
  • Fixes to make the ja, ko, yue, zh datetimeSkeletons useful for generating the standard patterns
  • Improved date/time test data

For more details, see below.

Locale Coverage Status

Count	Level	Usage	Examples
97	Modern	Suitable for full UI internationalization	čeština, Ελληνικά‎, Беларуская‎, ‎ᏣᎳᎩ‎, Ქართული‎, ‎Հայերեն‎, ‎עברית‎, ‎اردو‎, አማርኛ‎, ‎नेपाली‎, অসমীয়া‎, ‎বাংলা‎, ‎ਪੰਜਾਬੀ‎, ‎ગુજરાતી‎, ‎ଓଡ଼ିଆ‎, தமிழ்‎, ‎తెలుగు‎, ‎ಕನ್ನಡ‎, ‎മലയാളം‎, ‎සිංහල‎, ‎ไทย‎, ‎ລາວ‎, မြန်မာ‎, ‎ខ្មែរ‎, ‎한국어‎, 中文, 日本語‎, … ‎
16	Moderate	Suitable for “document content” internationalization, eg. in spreadsheet	Akan, Balóchi [Látin], brezhoneg, Cebuano, føroyskt, IsiXhosa, Māori, sardu, veneto, Wolof, татар, тоҷикӣ, कांगड़ी‎, …
55	Basic	Suitable for locale selection, eg. choice of language on mobile phone	Basa Sunda, emakhuwa, Esperanto, eʋegbe, Frysk, Malti, босански (ћирилица), କୁୱି (ଅଡ଼ିଆ), కువి (తెలుగు), ᱥᱟᱱᱛᱟᱲᱤ, ᓀᐦᐃᓇᐍᐏᐣ‬, ꆈꌠꉙ‎, …

* Note: Each release, the number of items needed for Modern and Moderate increases. So locales without active contributors may drop down in coverage level.

For a full listing, see Coverage Levels

Specification Changes

NOTE: The specification changes will be completed by the specification beta. Only a sample is listed here, and the Modifications section is not yet complete.

The following are the most significant changes to the specification (LDML).

• Don’t produce “Unknown City Time” for VVV and VVVV, use localized offset format instead CLDR-18237
• TBD (including Message Format, Part 9)

There are many more changes that are important to implementations, such as changes to certain identifier syntax and various algorithms. See the Modifications section of the specification for details.

Data Changes

TBD: Flesh out overview items

• Updated language matching for Afrikaans to English (en) from Dutch (nl) CLDR-18198
• Ordered scripts in <languageData> in descending order of usage per locale CLDR-18155
• Fixed certain invalid codes CLDR-18129

DTD Changes

Most of the DTD changes were in 46.1. One additional change was to order currency values in TBD get ticket number

For a full listing, see Delta DTDs.

Supplemental Data Changes

• Ordered scripts in decending order of usage per locale CLDR-18155
• Updated language matching for Afrikaans to English (en) from Dutch (nl) CLDR-18198
• Fixed invalid codes CLDR-18129
• TBD

For a full listing, see ¤¤BCP47 Delta and ¤¤Supplemental Delta

Locale Changes

• Cleanups for current pattern variants alt="alphaNextToNumber" and alt="noCurrency": These were introduced in CLDR 42 (per CLDR-14336) to provide a cleaner way of adjusting currency patterns when an alphabetic currency symbol is used, or when a currency-style pattern is desired without a currency symbol (as for use in a table). Gaps in the data coverage showed up, because the translators weren’t shown the right values. Fixes were made in CLDR-17879.
• As noted below in Migration, number <symbols> elements and format elements (<currencyFormats>, <decimalFormats>, <percentFormats>, <scientificFormats>) should all have a numberSystem attribute, and such elements without a numberSystem attribute will be deprecated in CLDR 48. To prepare for this, in CLDR 47, all such elements were either removed (if redundant) or correct by adding a numberSystem attribute. (CLDR-17760)

For a full listing, see Delta Data

Collation Data Changes

• Two old zh collation variants are removed: big5han and gb2312. They are no longer typically used, and only cover a fraction of the CJK ideographs. (CLDR-16062)

Number Spellout Data Changes

• Number spellout rules are added for Gujarati. (CLDR-18111)
• Number spellout rules are improved for several other languages:
  • Bulgarian: Improve usage of ‘и’ (“and”). (CLDR-17818)
  • Catalan: Add plural ordinal rules for both masculine and feminine, other fixes. (CLDR-15972)
  • Dutch: Add the alternate spellout-cardinal-stressed rule for specific Dutch scenarios. (CLDR-17187)
  • Hindi: Add the spellout-ordinal-masculine-oblique rule. (CLDR-15278)
  • Indonesian: Add missing semicolon that caused all ordinals to be prefixed with “pertama 2:”. (CLDR-17730)
  • Lithuanian: Add all of the grammatical cases, genders and grammatical numbers for cardinals and ordinals (no pronomial forms, and only the positive degree). (CLDR-18110)
  • Russian: Fix grammatcial case names in rules, and other issues. (CLDR-17386)
  • Ukrainian: Add digits-ordinal rules. (CLDR-16096)

Segmentation Data Changes

• The word break tailorings for fi and sv are removed to align with recent changes to the root collation and recent changes to ICU behavior. (CLDR-18272)

Transform Data Changes

• A new Hant-Latn transform is added, and Hans-Latn is added as an alias for the existing Hani-Latn transform. When the Unihan data kMandarin field has two values, the first is preferred for a CN/Hans context, and is used by the Hani-Latn/Hans-Latn transform; the second is preferred for a TW/Hant context, and is now used by the new Hant-Latn transform. (CLDR-18080)

JSON Data Changes

• CLDR-11874 New package with subdivision data (Note: see known issues).
• CLDR-17176 Timezone data now has a _type: "zone" attribute indicating which objects are leaf timezones (America/Argentina/Catamarca is a timezone, America/Argentina is not.)
• CLDR-18133 Currency data preserves the priority order (highest to lowest) of preferred currencies. This was an error in the DTD.
• CLDR-18277 Package name for transforms was incorrectly generated.

File Changes

In v47.0, but not 46.0:

• common/
  • main/
    • cop.xml, cop_EG.xml, en_CZ.xml, en_ES.xml, en_FR.xml, en_GS.xml, en_HU.xml, en_IT.xml, en_NO.xml, en_PL.xml, en_PT.xml, en_RO.xml, en_SK.xml, ht.xml, ht_HT.xml, yue_Hant_MO.xml
  • rbnf/
    • gu.xml
  • testData/
    • messageFormat/
      • tests/
        • bidi.json, fallback.json
        • functions/
          • currency.json, math.json
        • u-options.json
    • transforms/
      • und-Latn-t-und-hans.txt, und-Latn-t-und-hant.txt, Hant-Latin.xml keyboards/
  • abnf/
    • transform-from-required.abnf, transform-to-required.abnf

In 46.0, but not in 47.0:

• common/
  • segments/
    • fi.xml, sv.xml

Tooling Changes

There were various SurveyTool improvements targeting expansion of DDL support and error detection, such as the following:

• Added a CLA check CLDR-17612
• Improved validity checks for codes CLDR-18129
• Improved ability to detect invalid URLs in the site and spec CLDR-16526

Keyboard Changes

Note: for the v48 timeframe, additional processes are being developed for broad intake of keyboards.

• CLDR-16836 Added EBNF for keyboard transform format to the spec, and ABNF data files. This provides rigorous definition of the allowed keyboard transform format, as well as programmatic validation of the keyboard transform format.

Migration

• Removal of number data without numberSystem attributes.
  • Number <symbols> elements and format elements (<currencyFormats>, <decimalFormats>, <percentFormats>, <scientificFormats>) should all have a numberSystem attribute. In CLDR v48 such elements without a numberSystem attribute will be deprecated, and the corresponding entries in root will be removed; these were only intended as a long-ago migration aid. See the relevant sections of the LDML specification: Number Symbols and Number Formats.
• V48 advance warnings
  • Any locales that are missing Core data by the end of the CLDR 48 cycle will be removed CLDR-16004
  • The default week numbering will change to ISO instead being based on the calendar week starting in CLDR 48 CLDR-18275.

Known Issues

• CLDR-18219 common/subdivisions data files contained additional values that should not be present. These will be removed in the future, but note that they may be present in the new JSON data:
  • Non-subdivisions such as AW: Use the region code AW instead for translation.
  • Overlong subdivisions such as fi01: Use the region code AX instead for translation.

Acknowledgments

Many people have made significant contributions to CLDR and LDML; see the Acknowledgments page for a full listing.

The Unicode Terms of Use apply to CLDR data; in particular, see Exhibit 1.

For web pages with different views of CLDR data, see charts.