What ठ means
Use Shift + apostrophe on standard Devanagari InScript.
On a US keyboard, that is the key shared with double quote. Hindi Traditional and Marathi layouts assign ठ differently, so this shortcut is not universal.
What sound does ठ make?
ठ is ṭha: draw the tongue tip back and release extra breath.
The Latin-letter guide ṭha uses a dot under ṭ for the tongue-back sound and h for the extra breath. It is not the English “th” sound.
Like other Devanagari consonants, ठ normally has a short inherent a unless a vowel mark changes it. The virama in ठ् cancels that vowel; ठ can also join another consonant in a conjunct, or linked cluster.
Devanagari carries an older Brahmi script lineage
Brahmi is attested in Aśokan inscriptions from the 3rd century BCE. Northern forms of Brahmi developed through Gupta; Devanagari emerged from Gupta in the 7th century CE and matured around the 13th century CE.
Devanagari was used for Sanskrit inscriptions and religious manuscripts, then came to serve more everyday languages. Its historical script landscape includes related traditions such as Siddhamātr̥kā and Śāradā; these are connected scripts, not interchangeable letter sets.
Fonts can draw ठ with different outlines; that changes how it looks, not which character the text contains.
Don't confuse it with
2Questions people ask
1Why does ठ show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
How to type ठ
ठ\0920Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.