Cham letter bha

It is a Cham consonant letter, not a complete word.

Cham consonants usually carry a built-in vowel, which written marks can change. A full word supplies the meaning; ꨞ’s letter name does not translate as one.

How did Cham writing develop?

It grew from Brahmi-derived writing in Champa.

The Cham script grew from Brahmi, an early Indian writing system, through Pallava forms used in southern India; it took shape in Champa, a historic polity along Vietnam’s central coast. The Võ Cạnh stele, a stone inscription, carries Sanskrit text and is dated between the second and fourth centuries; inscriptions in the older Cham language are attested by the fourth or fifth century.

Inscriptions recorded royal and temple life: some Sanskrit texts dedicate offerings to Hindu deities, while Cham language also entered the record. Later Cambodian Cham manuscripts carried Islamic teaching, at times alongside Arabic. Eastern and Western Cham followed related but distinct writing traditions. Much Cambodian Muslim scholarship moved toward Malay printed in Jawi, an Arabic-based script, from the mid-19th century; some Imam San communities kept Cham-script manuscripts as part of community identity.

Why does ꨞ look like a box?

Your font may not include Cham glyphs.

ꨞ needs a font with Cham coverage. Without one, a device may show a blank, a square, or another fallback glyph. Two Cham-capable fonts can draw the same character differently without changing the letter.