What ڊ means
A voiced d made with the tongue tip curled back. In Sindhi, ڊ is a retroflex d: the tongue tip bends back slightly during the sound. It uses the shape of د, the Arabic-script letter dāl for ordinary d, with a dot below; replacing ڊ with plain د changes the consonant.
In words such as ڊيل (“peahen”) and ڊاکَ (“black grapes”), ڊ marks the first consonant; the whole word supplies the meaning. Nearby Sindhi letters ڏ and ڍ represent other d-like sounds.
Why does Sindhi put a dot below د?
The dot distinguishes a Sindhi consonant plain د does not mark. Sindhi’s Arabic-script spelling adds letter forms for sounds that Arabic does not distinguish. The writing system developed over time: a Sindhi historical account reports Arabic-Sindhi writing around 864 CE, and its example uses plain د where modern Sindhi writes ڊ. Different forms circulated before a British-backed standard was published in July 1853.
Sindhi has also been written in Devanagari, Khudawadi, and Khojki; ڊ belongs to its Arabic-script tradition. The letter is also associated with early Persian and Malagasy writing.
Neutral in tone; in Sindhi, the dot marks a different consonant.
Do not substitute plain د: it writes an ordinary d, not Sindhi’s tongue-curled d.
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Who writes ڊ
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Don't confuse it with
4
Questions people ask
1Will every Arabic-script font render ڊ the same way?
No. As of 2026, some Arabic-script fonts support Sindhi-specific glyph forms, and font and app support varies. If an app offers a Sindhi language setting, it may select those forms.
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Collections with ڊ
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How to type or find ڊ
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- Sindhi letter ڊ · Sindhi retroflex d · dot-below d · Sindhi keyboard · Sindhi ڊ vs Urdu ڈ · ḍ
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
ڊ\068ACodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.