Image: Wikimedia Commons

Morse code

Communication code with signals representing letters, punctuation marks and numbers

Entitycharacter encoding script constructed writing systemQ79897

Instance of: character encoding
, script
, constructed writing system
+2 more
Founded: 1837

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Morse code is a telecommunications method which encodes text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called dots and dashes, or dits and dahs. It is named after Samuel Morse, one of several developers of the system. Morse's preliminary proposal for a telegraph code was replaced by an alphabet-based code developed by Alfred Vail, the engineer working with Morse. Vail's version was used for commercial telegraphy in North America. Friedrich Gerke simplified Vail's code to produce the code adopted in Europe, and most of the alphabetic part of the (ITU) "Morse" is copied from Gerke's revision.

Overview

All data

73 statements · 21% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Named after: Samuel Finley Breese Morse
Uses: Morse alphabet
Said to be the same as: morse
Discovered: 1836
Discovered by: Samuel Finley Breese Morse
Alfred Vail
Creator: Samuel Finley Breese Morse
Alfred Vail
Script directionality: left-to-right
Location of creation: Boston
Intangible cultural heritage status: Inventaris Vlaanderen van het Immaterieel Cultureel Erfgoed(since 2014) country: Belgium · operating area: Flemish Region · title: Morsecode
1
Sources
1.immaterieelerfgoed.be/nl/erfgoederen/MorsecodeRetrieved 2023-05-10
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage Netherlands(since 2014) country: Netherlands
2
Sources
1.“Morse code as a means of communication”immaterieelerfgoed.nl/en/morsecodeRetrieved 2025-12-14
2.“Morsecode als communicatiemiddel”immaterieelerfgoed.nl/nl/morsecodeRetrieved 2025-12-14
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Location: Earth
Permanent duplicated item: Morse alphabet

On other databases

37 identifiers linking Morse code across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

21%

externally sourced

Source last edited October 6, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). Morse code (Q79897). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/morse-code-Q79897