What ډ means
On Windows, as of 2026, choose Pashto (Afghanistan) and press ShiftN.
What sound does ډ make?
It is Pashto’s retroflex d, made with the tongue tip curled back.
Plain د is pronounced with the tongue farther forward. In Pashto words such as ډوډۍ (“bread” or “food”), this letter marks that distinct sound. It does not join to the next letter, so its connected forms are isolated or final.
Where did Pashto’s letter ډ come from?
It took shape as Pashto writing adapted an Arabic-based script.
Pashto script history reflects that adaptation: added letters mark sounds that Arabic and Persian spelling did not distinguish. Khayr al-bayān, an early handwritten Pashto book, was written in the mid-sixteenth century; surviving copies are dated 1651 and 1668.
Early Pashto writers used competing additions; later spelling standards grouped ډ with the Pashto retroflex letters ټ, ړ, and ڼ.
Part of the collection
Who writes ډ
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Don't confuse it with
3
Related characters
3
Alphabet
Questions people ask
1Why does ډ show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
More like this
8
Collections with ډ
1
How to type or find ډ
- Also called
- ḍāl · ḍal · ddal
- Search it as
- ddaal · pandak · panḍak · retroflex · pashto · pashtu
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
ډ\0689Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.