Coptic Combining Spiritus Asper

It is a rare Coptic breathing mark that modifies a letter.

In one rare spelling, it sits over the Coptic letter ⲏ in a borrowed Greek conjunction meaning “or”; read the whole word, not the mark alone.

Its history is layered: writing Egyptian with Greek letters is attested as early as 350–300 BCE, though surviving evidence from that period is sparse. An early fourth-century Coptic magical papyrus uses the Greek rough-breathing sign for an initial h sound, either as a mark over a letter or as an L-shaped character. That is evidence for one Greek-influenced spelling practice, not a rule for every Coptic dialect or text.

Why does ⳰ look wrong when I type it?

It needs a host letter and a font that can place it.

In a Unicode editor, enter the Coptic base letter first, then the mark: ⲏ⳰. By itself, ⳰ has no ordinary spacing, and putting it before the letter changes what it attaches to.

Its position depends on font support and text shaping, so it can appear too high, detached, tiny, or missing. The Greek rough-breathing sign ◌̔ and the paired Coptic mark ⳱ can look similar, but they are separate characters; use the form in the source text.