UAX #14 rev. 57, Section 5.1 class HL: “a hyphen is any character of class HY or class BA” disagrees with LB21a

The class HL description says that a hyphen between a Hebrew letter and non-Hebrew text is any character of class HY or BA. Rule LB21a covers HY and HH, and the class BA description says EN DASH and FIGURE DASH do not participate in LB21a. In 18.0 EN DASH moved to BA, so the difference now applies to a common character.

Consequence

U+05D0 HEBREW LETTER ALEF, U+2013 EN DASH, U+0061, position 2: the HL description gives no break; LB21a does not apply to BA and LB31 gives a break.

Proposed correction

Say “a hyphen is any character of class HY or class HH” in the HL description.

Issued by

Unicode Consortium — Unicode Technical Committee

Act

UAX #14 revision 57 (Unicode 18.0.0)

Place

Section 5.1, class HL, against rule LB21a

Record

Discrepancy

Class

Text of the act

Where it arose

The text of the act

Arxo's conclusion

Confirmed

Official text

Unchanged at last check

Last checked

2026-10-31

Evidence

Contradiction within the text. Quotations are verbatim from the official material; translations are ours and marked.

When a Hebrew letter is separated from following non-Hebrew text by a hyphen, there is no break on either side of the hyphen. In this context a hyphen is any character of class HY or class BA.

LB21a Do not break after the hyphen in Hebrew + Hyphen + non-Hebrew. HL (HY | HH) × [^HL]

Contrary to the hyphens in HH, these dashes are not used to indicate affixes, so these characters do not participate in rules LB20a and LB21a.

How to check it without Arxo's tools

1. Open UAX #14 revision 57 (Unicode 18.0.0), Unicode Consortium and find Section 5.1, class HL, against rule LB21a; rule LB21a; class BA. Compare the text with the quotation above. A copy is kept in this register: 296df5332aefe695-tr14-57.html (SHA-256 296df5332aefe695b4951b511288b118bc6a7b43db7fadfd60f6062096acc7c0, copy of the official file).
2. The finding holds if the quoted passages read as shown and the comparison gives the result stated at the top of this page. If it does not, write to us with the record ID.

How this finding was made

AI agents read the annexes and the data files and compared them; the examples were run through published implementations. An AI coordinator checked each place against the full annex and the trackers, and two further AI models checked the report before filing.

Responsible institutions

• Unicode Consortium — publishes the annex and the Unicode Character Database

Reported to

Responses

No response recorded.

History

1. 2026-10-31Confirmed by Arxo
2. 2026-10-31Entered in the register
3. 2026-10-31Reported to Unicode Consortium (e-mail)

Cite this record

Arxo Law, Arxo Findings Register, ARXO-2026-0458, https://arxo.io/findings/ARXO-2026-0458/ (status as of 2026-10-31). Data: ARXO-2026-0458.json.