my @names = split/^/, do 'unicore/Name.pl'; #... my @vowelsets; for my $v ( qw/A E I O U/ ) { push( @vowelsets, join( '', map { chr hex( substr $_, 0, 4 ) } grep /LATIN (?:SMALL|CAPITAL) LETTER $v/, @names )); } # now you can use each element of @vowelsets as a character class # (similiarly for consonants...)