What ͎ means
It marks the preceding sound as whistled. In s͎, the mark follows s in the text and sits below it; s is the sound being modified. The mark is a phonetic diacritic, not an up arrow in the sequence.
extIPA (extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet) uses it to record speech details ordinary IPA does not represent. A 1987 study described whistling fricatives in Shona. The extIPA set was in development by 1989, and a 1994 publication marked its adoption for transcribing disordered speech.
A 2006 study describes whistled sibilants in Shona and Tshwa-Ronga; sibilants are hiss-like consonants. In descriptions of these languages, whistling can distinguish sounds. In clinical transcription, the same mark can record an unwanted whistle.
Should I send ͎ by itself?
No; its phonetic reading needs a base sound symbol. If it arrives alone, ask which sound it was meant to modify; the diacritic by itself does not tell you the intended sound.
Specialist phonetic notation used in clinical transcription and language description.
Alone, it lacks the base sound that gives it a phonetic reading.
What it means when someone sends it to you
2 readingsDon't confuse it with
1Combination ideas
2Questions people ask
1Why does ͎ look broken by itself?
It is a combining mark meant to attach to a preceding sound symbol. Without one, a font may show it detached, place it on a dotted circle, or position it awkwardly.
How to type ͎
͎\034ECodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.