Combining Comma Above Right

It attaches to a letter; its job depends on the spelling system. In some languages it marks glottalization or an ejective: a consonant made by closing the throat and releasing air with the mouth. The same mark can instead show where a sound applies in the spelling. U+0315 has no universal sound value.

A pre-Unicode encoding trail runs through ISO 5426, a standard published in 1980 for exchanging special letters and marks in library records. Its mapping record calls the entry “High comma off centre” and maps it to U+0315. This dates a digital encoding trail, not the mark's first use.

Why is the mark between two letters?

The position can show that the mark belongs to a two-letter consonant. A 2011 guide to Kwak̕wala U'mista spelling shows the placement rule: p̓ writes one ejective consonant, while k̕w uses the mark between k and w for an ejective written with two letters. An ejective is made by briefly closing the throat and releasing air with the mouth.

The rule is local. Unicode 17.0's examples for North American orthographies show several raised-comma encodings; the language's spelling convention determines which one belongs.

Why does the mark collide?

A combining mark can still disrupt horizontal spacing. Text stores it after its base letter, even when the font draws it above-right. Microsoft's 2026 Skeena Indigenous typeface documentation gives it narrow spacing treatment; a 2020 Noto font issue recorded collisions with the following letter.

In source text, insert it immediately after its base, as in k̕w. If it appears as a box or collides, the font may not support it or may position it poorly.