The exact behaviour of the ZWJ varies depending on whether the use of aconjunct consonant or ligature (where multiple characters are shown with a singleglyph) is expected by default; for instance, it suppresses the use of conjuncts inDevanagari (whilst still allowing the use of the individual joining form of a dead consonant, as opposed to ahalant form as would be required by thezero-width non-joiner), but induces the use ofconjuncts in Sinhala (which does not use them by default).[2][3] Similarly to Sinhala, when a ZWJ is placed between twoemoji characters (or interspersed between multiple), it can result in a single glyph being shown, such as the family emoji, made up of two adult emoji and one or two child emoji.[4]
In some cases, such as the second Devanagari example below, the ZWJ can be used to display a joining form in isolation, when included after the character and combining halant code.
The character's code point isU+200DZERO WIDTH JOINER (‍). In theInScript keyboard layout for Indian languages, it is typed by the key combinationCtrl+⇧ Shift+1. However, many layouts use the position ofQWERTY's ']' key for this character.[5]
^"13.2. Sinhala (§ Virama (al-lakuna) and Consonant Forms)".The Unicode Standard, Core Specification.Unicode Consortium.Unless combined with a U+200DZERO WIDTH JOINER, anal-lakuna is always visible and does not join consonants to form orthographic consonant clusters. […] Note how the use of ZWJ in Sinhala differs from that of typical Indic scripts.
Joiner.svg)
