Arabic Letter Oe

It marks Sorani Kurdish’s o vowel. Sorani writes vowels as full letters, so ۆ supplies the sound inside a word rather than adding a separate message or social meaning.

Arabic-script Kurdish predates the modern standard, and the spelling system around ۆ took shape in the 1920s. Taufiq Wahby’s 1929 Kurdish grammar, a book describing the language, was a reform milestone: writers adapted inherited Arabic-script letters to Kurdish sounds, while Kurdish intellectuals also treated a distinct alphabet as a sign of linguistic and cultural independence.

The same character also appears in Uyghur, Kazakh, Azerbaijani, and Bosnian writing. The surrounding language determines its local role.

is ۆ different from و?

Yes; they are different Sorani letters.

In Sorani, و can represent a w-like consonant or another u vowel, while وو spells long u. Replacing ۆ with و changes the spelling and may change how the word is read.

Do not rebuild ۆ as و plus a combining mark. That sequence is not the same text character, even if a font makes the shapes look similar.

how do i type ۆ?

Use a Sorani keyboard layout; do not substitute و.

Keyboard access depends on the selected language layout. CLDR 26 lists ۆ on macOS’s Sorani (ckb) layout and in Uyghur keyboard entries.

Arabic-script letters can change shape according to their position in a word. That is normal font shaping, not a different character.