What ⲳ means
It marks alef in Dialect P. Scholars usually describe its value as a glottal catch, but the exact sound is debated.
Demotic, an earlier Egyptian script, supplied signs Coptic added to Greek letters for sounds Greek lacked. As of 2023, P. Bodmer VI, a Proverbs manuscript, was the earliest surviving witness to Dialect P. Dating proposals place it in the third–fourth century or the fourth–fifth century. Its alef form resembles a Demotic sign linked to 𓄿, the Egyptian vulture hieroglyph.
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Who writes ⲳ
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Don't confuse it with
1
Related characters
2
Questions people ask
1Why does ⲳ show as a box on some devices?
Not every system ships a font for the Coptic block. Where none is installed, the character shows as an empty box; adding a font such as Noto fixes it. The character itself is still correct and copies correctly.
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10
How to type or find ⲳ
- Also called
- dialect-P alef · Proto-Theban alef
- Search it as
- Coptic alef · P-dialect alef · glottal stop · upside down t · perpendicular sign · inverted t
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
ⲳ\2CB3Why is ⲳ a box on my screen?
fsymbols draws rare signs with its own fonts, so they show here even where your device has none. An app or website without such a font shows an empty box (□) or a question mark instead. Turn our fonts off to see each sign as your device draws it by itself: a box here means a box in your chats and documents too.
Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.