Circled Katakana E

It encloses エ as a label, often for a list item.

In Japanese, this form is called 丸エ (maru-e, “circled e”). The circle makes ordinary katakana エ work as a compact item or annotation label; it does not create a different kana. Unicode describes enclosed kana as legacy characters once useful as numbered bullets. A 2004 Japanese e-book typesetting report also permits circled kana as ordered-list markers.

How did circled kana enter Japanese text?

Its print use became part of Japanese text standards.

A Japanese edition from 1782 uses circled kana in short notes attached to the text.

The Japanese character standard JIS X 0213 lists a defined subset of enclosed characters, while Unicode encodes a broader family. In a 2021 scholarly transcription scheme, ㋓ labels a sound in the エ row of a Japanese sound chart, setting the notation apart from ordinary kana.

How should I read ㋓ in a message?

Read it through the notation around it.

In a list, it labels an entry; in the scholarly transcription use, it marks a sound-chart row. Outside those conventions, the surrounding words have to explain its role.

For precise text, the precomposed ㋓ is different from エ followed by a separate combining circle. That circle can sit unevenly or fail to appear when a font or text system handles combining marks poorly.