Cham Vowel Sign Ei

It marks the vowel called ei in a Cham syllable.

Most Cham consonant letters carry a built-in vowel; ꨬ changes the vowel read in that syllable. It is part of the spelling, so by itself it leaves the syllable unfinished.

How do I type ꨬ?

Enter a Cham consonant first, then add ꨬ.

The sign is stored after its base, even if a font displays it elsewhere. A Cham-capable keyboard or input method needs to produce the full sequence.

On its own, the mark has no base to attach to. If it appears detached beside a character, the font or text renderer may not be shaping the sequence correctly.

How did Cham writing change over time?

It grew from early inscriptions into several kinds of written records.

The Đông Yên Châu inscription records Old Cham in a Pallava script in the late 4th century. Early stone inscriptions served political and religious purposes. The Cham script belongs to the Pallava-Grantha branch of Brahmi, an old South Asian writing family; later Cham writing also appears in administrative, literary, commercial, and ritual records.

In Cambodia, Cham-script Islamic manuscripts began falling out of use among most of the community by the mid-19th century, as Islamic learning and printed books in Jawi gained ground. Jawi is Malay written with an adapted Arabic alphabet. The Imam San community has kept engagement with this manuscript heritage as part of its identity.