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ꨪ

cham vowel sign i

Cham Vowel Sign I

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In Eastern Cham, ꨪ writes short i inside a syllable; it is not a complete letter on its own. A font without Cham support can make the mark look misplaced or missing.

Text symbol

What ꨪ means

It marks short i in an Eastern Cham syllable.

Cham is an abugida: its consonants carry a default vowel. This Cham diacritic is a dependent vowel sign that changes that default.

The combining mark is stored after its base consonant. The consonant and the signs around it form the full written syllable.

How old is Cham writing?

The earliest surviving Cham inscription is from the 4th century.

The Đông Yên Châu inscription is the oldest surviving text in an Austronesian language. Cham belongs to the Austronesian family, which includes Malay and many Pacific languages. Later inscriptions recorded royal claims, religious dedications, and gifts to deities; chronicles and community writing came afterward.

Cham script descends from Brahmi, an ancient Indian writing system, and is related at the script level to Khmer and Thai. Eastern and Western forms are used mainly in Vietnam and Cambodia, respectively. In 2022, a Unicode description of Western Cham recorded the native Ka-Kha script, named for its first two letters, and Jawi, an Arabic-based script; Ka-Kha spelling varies by community. ꨪ belongs to Eastern Cham spelling.

A technical spelling mark used inside Cham syllables; its role is part of the word being written.

By itself, it is unfinished: this sign needs a base consonant to modify.

Part of the collection

ꤊ
Southeast Asian Minority Scripts (Kayah Li, Kawi, Ahom, Cham …)
Explore 522 more →

Who writes ꨪ

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What it means when someone sends it to you

2 readings

It changes that consonant’s built-in vowel to short i.

Don't confuse it with

2
ꨁ
Cham Letter I
ꨪ vs ꨁ: ꨁ is the independent Cham letter i; ꨪ is a dependent mark added to a consonant.
ꨫ
Cham Vowel Sign Ii
ꨫ is the long-i vowel sign; ꨪ marks short i.

Combination ideas

1
The Eastern Cham word for spider; ꨪ supplies the i vowel in its middle syllable.

Questions people ask

1

Why does ꨪ disappear in some fonts?

A font without Cham coverage may fail to draw or position this combining mark. Another font may render the same text correctly.

How to type or find ꨪ

Search it as
Cham i mark · Cham diacritic · Cham combining mark · Eastern Cham vowel sign · ꨪ vs ꨁ
Shows up in
Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
Windows (Word)
⎇Alt+XType AA2A, then AltX to get ꨪ.
Windows
⊞Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win .).
macOS
⌃Control+⌘Command+␣SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “cham vowel sign i”.
Linux
⎈Ctrl+⇧Shift+UType aa2a, then Enter or Space.
HTML
ꨪ
CSS
\AA2A
Unicode input
How to type ꨪ: use your editor’s Unicode hexadecimal input command and enter UAA2A; the keystroke varies by app.
In a Cham syllable
Type it after the consonant it modifies. Some other Cham vowel signs display before their base even though they are encoded after it.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
ꨪ
HTML hex
ꨪ
CSS content
content: "\AA2A";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%EA%A8%AA
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
3
UTF-8 bytes

A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.

Families this belongs to

1

Southeast Asian scripts2,070 symbols

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