Chorasmian letter aleph

It is the ordinary aleph letter in Chorasmian words. In scholarly transliteration, it is written ʾ; the mark identifies the letter but does not give it a fixed pronunciation.

Written Chorasmian is attested on silver bowls from the Achaemenid period; the cursive tradition's earliest records are coin legends from the 2nd century CE. Aramaic writing reached Chorasmia through imperial administration, then local scribes shaped it into older, carved-inscription, and cursive styles.

The writing preserved names and dates, lists of soldiers, and supply records; later inscriptions marked silver vessels and ossuaries, stone boxes for human remains. Imperial Aramaic, an administrative writing tradition, links Chorasmian script historically to Inscriptional Parthian, Pahlavi varieties, and Old Sogdian. Chorasmian was also written in a modified Arabic script. One chronology dates that form to the 11th–14th centuries; another places replacement of the local script by Arabic around the turn of the 10th century. That Arabic-based writing is a different script from 𐾰.

Why does 𐾰 change shape in words?

Its connected form follows neighboring letters. The base aleph joins on both sides; its starting or middle shape depends on whether the next letter joins. Coins and silver vessels also show a glyphic variant.

Small aleph 𐾱 is a separate raised, nonjoining form used to mark possession in ossuary inscriptions. It is not a font variation of 𐾰.