Karaktere

Karaktere is a term used in several languages to refer to characters, in both textual and narrative contexts. The word can describe the individual units of a writing system—letters, digits, punctuation marks, and other symbols—as well as the persons who inhabit a story, film, or game. In computing and digital text, characters are the basic units that store information and are represented in character encodings such as Unicode and UTF-8. A single character may consist of one code point or be formed by combining multiple code points, as in accented letters or emojis.

In linguistics and typography, a character is distinguished from a grapheme; a grapheme is the smallest unit of a writing system that conveys a meaningful sound or concept, while a character is the abstract unit used in encoding. In practice, the distinction can be subtle.

In narrative arts, characters are the agents of action and meaning. They are described through traits, actions, dialogue, and development—protagonists, antagonists, and supporting characters. Arcs, motivations, and interactions with other characters drive plot and theme.

Cultural productions also treat characters as icons or symbols, such as fictional heroes, villains, or mascot figures, and as visual characters in media like comics and animation. With the rise of digital communication, many characters exist in emoji form, expanding the range of characters beyond traditional alphabets.