"Red Five" mahjong tiles

[Porges]

Japanese (Rīchi) Mahjong optionally switches one five in each suit to be a red five. When discussing rules or strategy in text, it is useful to be able to refer to them directly, as they have a semantic difference (they are worth extra points).

Here are two screenshots from Daina Chiba's book "Riichi Book 1":

Petitions

N/A

Proposals

N/A

Specific References

• Riichi Book 1

Standard References

• Unicode Technical Standard 51 “Unicode Emoji” (beta)
• How to propose emojis to Unicode
• How to propose other additions or changes to Unicode (required form, email address: docsubmit＠unicode.org)
• Unicode document submission form

[Porges]

Note that in some variants other tiles (3s, 7s) are marked red as well/instead of the 5s.

[Logo121]

New link for the Book

I guess another justification is that the red dora tiles are sometimes drawn differently (e.g. with a dot) for accessibility purposes, like those shown here, or this Kanto set in Wikipedia

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Though if we are talking about encoding Mahjong variant tiles, I wonder how far we can go with that.

Encoding local variants in Unicode is not exactly a new thing, we have stuff like:

• Separate codepoints for variants in the Eastern Zodiac (which is how we got different characters for Goat, Sheep and Ram, etc)
• The "Playing Cards" Block containing the standard poker deck + Knight, and 3 Jokers instead of 2.
• The "Chess Symbols" Block containing all sorts of "rotated" variants of chess pieces to represent fairy chess pieces, some of them not even having evidences of actual use cases.
• Even for Mahjong tiles, The joker tile 🀪 is already encoded in Unicode because it is "used in American Mahjong". It is not in the standard or traditional "Old Hong Kong" version.

Here are some variants that I know of/can find (based on wiki), in a roughly decreasing order (*in my opinion) of certainty/popularity:

• Red dora 5's, as given by this issue. Popular in Japanese Mahjong, probably the most common local rule in Japan.
• Dotted white dragon (白ポッチ shiro pocchi), which is a special White Dragon that acts as a wildcard if drawn after Richi (among other rule variations). Wiki says they are rare, but I assume they are at least more popular than most other variants in Japan.
  • There are two styles for this tile, though they have no semantic difference.
• Restricted Jokers, along with the "Universal" one. Used in Vietnamese Mahjong and most Hong Kong variants of it. The most common version I can find (online) is these 8: 番元喜合筒索萬總 (Honor, Dragon, Wind, Suit, Circle, Bamboo, Character, Universal), or occasionally 花 (Flower Joker, acting as the "correct" Flower) instead of 番.
  • Some Hong Kong variants use 將 (2-5-8) or 么 (1-9, see below) instead.
• Two extra sets of Flowers. Used in Malaysian and Vietnamese Mahjong (according to wiki), but with different naming schemes. Whether they can/should be unified is unknown.
  • Malaysia uses 琴棋書画 漁樵耕読 (4 arts + 4 professions)
  • Vietnam uses 皇 and 后 with numbering
• Extra Red tiles, as mentioned above. 3/7's appears occasionally in variants, and even rarer are 1/9's or Norths.
  • Sometimes the Dotted white dragon is considered a Red tile as well.
• Unordered (but paired) Flowers ("Animal Tiles"). Used in Malaysian Mahjong. Getting a matching pair means immediate payment (according to wiki). The 2 most standardized pairs are probably these:
  • Some versions involve "loosely paired" Human Head Tiles, where any Female + Male Head tile form a matching Pair.
  • Some versions involve "unpaired" Clown Tiles, where any two Clown tiles form a matching Pair.

Some variants are so rare and niche that they might not be encoded properly:

• Less common/standard Jokers:
  • "Fly" tiles (飛), which are Universal Joker that can be "recycled" from exposure if the tile it replaces is drawn, Rummikub-style. Found in Malaysian Mahjong. Though since they don't have a "normal" Universal Joker, this might not count as a separate tile.
    • Similarly, a "second Universal joker" (陞王) in an old "King Mahjong" variant that is assumed to function the same as the Universal Joker.
  • Some more obscure Joker variants, like those sold here. These are adopted in varying degrees in Hong Kong Joker Mahjong variants (example here), but are mostly non-standardized and undocumented. They include:
    • 1-4-7, 2-5-8, and 3-6-9 Jokers. Sometimes represented as 仕, 將 and 卒 (or 兵) respectively.
    • 1-9, 3-7, and 4-6 (but no 2-8) Jokers. 1-9 and 3-7 are sometimes represented as 么 and 偏 respectively.
    • Lower (1-2-3-4) and Upper (6-7-8-9) Jokers. Represented as 小 and 大.
    • Odd (1-3-5-7-9) and Even (2-4-6-8) Jokers. Represented as 單 and 雙.
    • "5 + Honors" (五番) or "Gap + Honors" (卡番) Jokers. "Gap" meaning the middle tile in Chow melds.
    • "Alive" and "Dead" tile Jokers (生死). "Alive" meaning tiles having not been exposed (or discarded), "Dead" meaning all 4 exposed.
    • "Grass" Joker (草), acting as an "Incorrect" joker as opposed to the Flower Joker.
    • Some Jokers I can't find a defined purpose for (probably varies between house rules anyway):
      • Middle Joker (中, not the red dragon): Probably complement of the 小-大 series. This implies that it is just all 5-tiles.
      • Kong Joker (槓): It is related to Kong but not sure how specifically.
      • "Replacement" Joker (換): Might be another name for the "Fly" tile above.
      • "Gap only" Joker (卡): shown to coexist with "卡番" in some sets.example.
• Extra animals:
  • Wiki mentions that Thai and 4P Malaysian sets have 4 animals, but no info on what the other 2 pairs are.
  • The Wiki also shows an image with 18 pairs of animals.
  • Since they can't reasonably be all encoded. It may actually make more sense to use an Emoji + "combining Mahjong Tile character" at that point. Same for the Jokers or the Flowers below.
• Extra flowers:
  • This article mentions that ancient Mahjong variants have more than 2 sets of flowers, which all have vastly different themes. The wiki even mentions a variant that has up to 44 flowers (11 sets).
  • This site shows some reports from the viewers that they've found some sets with "5th flowers". Their purpose or prevalence is unknown.
• Extra more Red Tiles (Even numbers, Wind tiles or Flower tiles), or even other colored (counted differently) tiles. Found in Mahjong parlors that want to have their unique house rules
  • If these obscure variants are to be encoded (or considered), it's probably best to just use combining characters or sequences instead.

And these variants that are probably one-off and cannot be encoded (here for documentation sake only):

• Single-rank jokers from 1 to 9 (replaces the number for any suit). Played here (house rule)
• Whatever the heck these are (Called function tiles, see thumbnail for clearer image).
• This vendor sells a set with 10-tiles, without a defined rule on how to use them.

[Logo121]

There seems to be one attempt to encode Mahjong variants (among other things like related symbols) into a font:
https://twitter.com/Umihotarus/status/945598664512233472

Notably, the preview includes the Red 3, 5 and 7 tiles as mentioned by OP (rendered as inverted-color tiles),

the full (standard?) set of 4 pairs of animals,

and an alternate (but probably original) rendition of the 10-tiles.

However, the font (pack) itself doesn't seem to be free, nor is it available for sale (for some reason), so I'm not able to find out what tiles the font has recorded.

The creator also decided against proposing a "Mahjong Tiles Supplement" block themselves, due to lack of evidence of these variants ever being referenced in text.