Letterlike symbols derive from ordinary letters of an alphabetic script, but have become symbols. This set includes symbols based on Latin, Greek, and Hebrew letters.

The Limbu script is a Brahmic script primarily used to write Limbu, a Tibeto-Burman language that is mainly spoken in eastern Nepal, but also in the Indian states of Sikkim and West Bengal. It is often called “Sirijanga” after the Limbu cultural hero Sirijanga, who is credited with inventing the script. It is also called “Kirat,” after a Sanskrit term that probably refers to some type of non-Aryan hill-dwellers. There are three forms of the script: the early form based on the forms found in 19C manuscripts, the early-modern script used in publications from 1928 to 1970s, and the modern script, dating to 1970s.

The Lisu script, also known as Fraser, is used to write the Lisu language in China, Myanmar, India and Thailand. The script is derived from the Latin alphabet and was developed by James Ostram Fraser in 1915, who produced a Lisu translation of the New Testament using his alphabet. In 1992 the Chinese government recognised the Fraser alphabet as the official script for the Lisu language and has encouraged its use since then.

The Lycian alphabet dates from about 500 BCE to 300 BCE. It is found on about 150 stone inscriptions, over 200 coins, and a few other objects in the area of Lycia (SW Turkey). The script is used for Lycian (earlier known as "Lycian A,"). A dialect of Lycian, called Lycian B or Milyan, is known from two texts and is covered by the characters in the Unicode block. The Lycian alphabet shows a close relationship with the Greek alphabet. The Lycian language is not fully understood, but the discovery of a 41-line trilingual inscription at Letoon in southwest Turkey has considerably assisted in the study of the language, as has recognition of shared features between Lycian and the better-known Luvian language.

The Lydian alphabet is closely related to, or derives from, the Greek alphabet. The script has been found on over 100 inscriptions and coins from the end of the 8C (or the beginning of 7C) BCE until the 3C BCE, primarily in or near Sardis, in present-day Turkey. Lydian is not well understood, as the textual evidence is limited and no extensive bilingual text has been uncovered to date.

Mahjong tiles are game symbols of Chinese origin representing the set of tiles used to play the popular game of mahjong. The game has been around since at least the mid-19C, though its precise history is not known. The game spread to Japan, Britain, and the United States during the early 20C. The block of characters encoded in the Mahjong Tiles block covers a superset of the symbol symbols, as there is some variety in the sets used in different countries.

The Malayalam script is used to write the Malayalam language of the state of Kerala of southwestern India. The Malayalam language is a Dravidian language like Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu. Malayalam has borrowed words from Tamil, Sanskrit, Arabic, and English.

The Mandaic script is used to write the liturgical language of the gnostic Mandaean religion, which has adherents in Iraq, Iran and the diaspora. A small number of people speak a variety of the Mandaic language today. The script appears to have evolved from the Aramaic script or the Parthian chancery script.

The Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block contains letter-like symbols that are used in mathematical or technical notation. The characters in this block, which include Latin and Greek letters, show various style variations, such as bold, italic, bold italic, double-struck, and sans serif glyphs, which are important for math semantics. The symbols in the block are not intended to be used for general, non-mathematical text, for which users should instead use characters from the Latin and Greek blocks, and rely on rich text features in a word-processing program (such as to make the letters "italic").

The Mathematical Operators block includes characters for operators, geometric symbols, relations, and a number of other symbols with special mathematical usages. Because mathematical operators often have more than one meaning, some characters have several semantic values attributed to them. The Supplemental Mathematical Operators set contains additional symbols that supplement the Mathematical Operators block.

The Meetei Mayek script is used to write the Meetei (Manipuri) language, which is spoken primarily in Manipur, a state in northeastern India that borders on Myanmar. The Manipur Government has supported the teaching of the Meetei Mayek script in schools. In its modern form of the script, most of the letters are named after a part of the body.

The Miscellaneous Mathematical Symbols-A and -B blocks contains various symbols used for mathematical notation. The Symbols-A block includes symbols that are used mostly as operators or delimiters, and the Symbols-B block contains symbols such as fences and other delimiters.

The characters in the Miscellaneous Symbols block are a mixed collection of symbols that tend to be pictographic. While the symbols may be used for text decorations, they can appear as text characters in printed works, such as chess books, horoscopes, and game manuals. Subsets include weather and astronomical symbols, pointing hands, religious and ideological symbols, the Yijing (I Ching) trigrams, planet and zodiacal symbols, game symbols, dictionary and map symbols, and recycling symbols. The symbols derive from a variety of national and vendor character sets, including the Japanese ARIB STD-B24 standard and the emoji sets of Japanese cell phone carriers. The Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block likewise contains pictographic characters as well as emoji characters. This block spans categories such as weather, planets, food and drink, animal and human faces, communication, and Japanese grade school symbols. The Miscellaneous Symbols and Arrows block contains mathematical symbols and arrows, a number of generic symbols, and shapes from the ARIB STD-B24 standard used in various contexts (such as in dictionaries and on maps).

The Miscellaneous Technical set includes various technical symbols, including keytop labels, mathematical delimiters, angle brackets and crops and quine corners, as well as symbols used in dentistry notation, drafting, programming (APL), and metrical notation.

The set of Modifier Tone Letters contains modifier letters used to mark tones. These include: corner tone marks used in a transcriptional system of Chinese (invented by E. Bridgman and S. Wells Williams in the early 19C); a group of tone letters used primarily for Chinese; a set of tones used for an orthography used to write Chinantec, an Oto-Manguean language of Mexico; marks to indicate tone used by linguists for African languages.

The Mongolian block reflects a unification of Mongolian and the three derivative scripts, Todo, Manchu, and Sibe. The Mongolian script was itself derived from the Uighur script around the beginning of the 13C CE and has remained in use in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. However, in the 1940s, the traditional script was replaced by a Cyrillic orthography in Outer Mongolia (the present-day country of Mongolia). The Mongolian script has been revived since the early 1990s in Mongolia. In 2010 the President of Mongolia issued a decree that the traditional script will be required in certain official documents starting in 2011.

The Musical Symbols block covers characters used by basic Western musical notation and its antecedents (mensural notation and plainsong - or Gregorian - notation). This set draws largely from common musical notation (CMN), a comprehensive coded language in regular use to represent sound. In order to handle layout and pitch representation, users should rely on higher level protocols.

N’Ko is used to write the Mande languages Mandekan (Manding or Mandingo), Maninka (Malinke), Bambara, Dioula (Dyula) and their dialects. It is used in West Africa, including Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Senegal, The Gambia, Mali, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Burkina Faso. N’Ko was created by Solomana Kante of Guinea circa 1949. “N’Ko” translates as “I say” in all Manding dialects.

New Tai Lue is a simplification of an older Tai Lue script (called Tai Tham, Lanna, or Old Tai Lue). New Tai Lue was developed in the 20C and is used primarily in southern China to write the Lü (or Tai Lue) language. The script is unrelated to the Tai Le script.

The Number Forms block contains a series of number-related symbols. These include: Roman numerals and vulgar fraction characters. Most of these symbols were included in the Unicode Standard to provide compatibility with other encoding standards. In general, the use of compound characters in this block is discouraged, as other characters are available to represent them.