1. In decoder apparatus for decoding data encoded in caption layer data of a television data stream, a method for decoding the encoded data characterized by steps of: receiving the encoded data as service blocks, each service block comprising a header and at least two data bytes, retrieving data packets from the service blocks, decoding the data packets, each data packet comprising a plurality of data bytes, the data packets indicated by particular bit indications appearing in one of the plurality of bytes of each data packet, storing a plurality of letter components in memory for at least two languages, a first language having the Roman alphabet and a second language having a syllabic alphabet, determining if the data packet represents a non-printable character, and mapping remaining bit positions of the data packet for a printable character into a number of letter component pointer bytes less than or equal to the number of bytes comprising the data packets, the letter component pointer bytes for pointing to one of a Roman alphabet letter and a syllabic alphabet letter component in memory for display.