Cham Letter U

It writes Cham’s vowel U at a syllable’s start. In Akhar Thrah (the Cham script), this independent vowel is a letter of its own, not a vowel mark attached to a consonant. It can also appear inside a word at a syllable break.

How old is Cham writing?

Some surviving Cham records are estimated to date to the mid-4th century. The Đông Yên Châu inscription—writing carved on a lasting surface—is undated; its estimated date comes from comparison with nearby inscriptions in Sanskrit, a classical South Asian language. Early inscriptions record victories and elite donations to temples and religious foundations. Later Cham writing appears in literary, documentary, and ritual manuscripts, while Eastern and Western traditions developed separately. Cham belongs to the Brahmi-derived family of scripts with roots in ancient South Asia. This evidence dates the written tradition, not ꨂ’s exact shape.