Circled Question Ideograph

It is 問, the Han character for asking, enclosed in a circle.

As the ARIB circled form of 問, ㉄ carries the character’s ask or inquire sense across Chinese, Japanese, and Korean vocabulary. Japanese dictionaries also record an older use meaning to visit or inquire after someone. The circle marks an enclosed form; it adds no separate tone.

What does it mean if someone sends ㉄?

A sender is pointing to a question or an act of asking.

The enclosure does not tell you whether they are curious, puzzled, or joking. Let the surrounding words set the tone; if the message stays unclear, ask the sender.

Where did ㉄ come from?

Its documented trail runs through Japanese digital broadcasting.

ARIB STD-B24, Japan’s standard for coding and transmitting data for digital broadcasting, was established in 1999. It covers caption and superimpose coding—text layered over broadcast video.

A 2007 Unicode proposal records ARIB code 9247 as a circled 問 entry in a private-use code position, where applications could assign a local mapping before a shared standard existed. That mapping later became ㉄. The proposal also links it to ㉅, ㉆, and ㉇, other circled ideographs from the ARIB set.