Arabic Letter Ain with Two Dots Vertically Above

It is an Arabic-script letter used in local-language spelling. Its two vertical dots modify the ʿayn-shaped base to distinguish a consonant in an orthography. In African Ajami, writers adapted Arabic script to spell local languages; this form appears in a Zarma/Songhoy chart for Mali and Niger. Ajami is a name for Arabic-script writing adapted to languages other than Arabic, not one single alphabet.

Arabic-script writing of Songhay languages is documented by the 13th century, but that dates the writing tradition, not this exact letter. A chart connected with standardization work in the late 1980s shows the form; a Unicode proposal reproduced it in 2003.

How do I type ݟ?

Use hexadecimal input for the character. In Microsoft Office, type 075F and press Alt+X. In Linux GTK, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type 7 5 F, then Enter.

In source code, write the Unicode escape \u075F where your programming language accepts it. The letter has its own encoding; plain ع followed by two combining dots does not produce the same character.

Is ݟ the same as ع?

No. The dots distinguish a separate letter. It uses the ʿayn-shaped base and joins Arabic-style text, while keeping its own dot pattern. Joining and font design can make its connected form look different from an isolated example.

The related forms ݝ and ݞ also use an ain-shaped base but have different dot patterns. They identify different letters, so their dots are not interchangeable.