Bengali Letter Au

It is the independent letter for this vowel. In a consonant-led syllable, the split sign ৌ supplies it and sits around the consonant despite following it in text order.

Bangla descends from regional Brahmi scripts, an early South Asian writing tradition. A c.1289 Cambridge manuscript preserves the full alphabet and an early ঔ; later forms lost its lower-left stroke.

A 1920 account writes Bengali ঔ as অউ (o then u) and Oriya as আউ (a then u). Bangla guides romanize its reading as ou, one glide from “o” toward “oo.”