Arabic Letter U

Use a Uyghur keyboard layout. The Unicode CLDR Version 25 (2014) chart places ۇ on the unshifted 7 key.

At the start of a Uyghur word, ۇ commonly follows ئ, the hamza carrier, to form ئۇ. Arabic-script letters can join, so the glyph’s shape may change with its position while the character stays the same.

What does ۇ mean?

It marks the rounded “u” vowel in Arabic-script Uyghur. This is a letter used inside written words.

Arabic-derived writing for Turkic varieties that became Uyghur is documented in Eastern Turkistan from at least the 11th century. Older Chaghatay spelling left some Turkic vowels to context; later reforms made vowel letters more explicit. Uyghur ۇ belongs to a vowel set that also includes ۆ and ۈ for different sounds.

Unicode also uses ۇ in Arabic-script forms of Azerbaijani, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz. The character alone cannot tell you which language a passage is written in.