U+2068 "" First Strong Isolate Unicode Character
Unicode Version 17.0
U+2068 "" First Strong Isolate is an invisible control character used in bidirectional text to establish an isolated directional embedding that follows the inherent directionality of its first strongly directional character, such as a letter in a left to right or right to left script. Unlike the Left to Right Isolate or Right to Left Isolate, this character does not force a specific direction but instead allows the enclosed text to determine its own base direction from the content within, which helps prevent unintended direction shifts and improves text handling in mixed script contexts like Arabic and English. It works in conjunction with the corresponding Pop Directional Isolate (U+2069) to terminate the isolated segment.
General Properties
| Code Point | U+2068 |
| Version Added | 6.3 |
| Name | First Strong Isolate |
| Block | General Punctuation |
| General Category | Format |
| Canonical Combining Class | Not Reordered |
| Bidirectional Class | First Strong Isolate |
| Bidirectional Control | Yes |
| Alias | FSI (abbreviation) |
Encodings
| HTML Decimal Encoding | ⁨ |
| HTML Hex Encoding | ⁨ |
| UTF-8 Encoding | 0xE2 0x81 0xA8 |
| UTF-16 Encoding | 0x2068 |
| UTF-32 Encoding | 0x00002068 |
| C/C++/Java Escape | \u2068 |