Dives Akuru Letter E

It is the independent vowel E in historic Dives Akuru.

It writes a vowel on its own, without a consonant attached. Dives Akuru was used to spell Dhivehi, the language of the Maldives; 𑤆 does that ordinary spelling work.

How did Dives Akuru develop?

It developed through a long script lineage.

The history of Dives Akuru runs through Brahmi and Grantha. The earliest Maldives inscription, a coral-stone record at Landū in a Grantha form, dates from the sixth to eighth centuries. Recognizable Dives Akuru appears on Māle statues from the ninth and tenth centuries. In the twelfth century, regular records begin with lōmāfānu copper-plate grants for mosque construction and upkeep. The script is most closely related to medieval Sinhala and shares features with Tigalari.

Dives Akuru appears in paper decrees, wood engravings, stone epitaphs and manuscripts. During the Islamic period, Arabic writing appeared beside it, while broad, flat pens reshaped its letters. Thaana appeared alongside it in the early 18th century and replaced it as the regular Dhivehi script by the turn of the 19th century; scholars studied and used Dives Akuru into the 20th century.

Why does 𑤆 look different in different fonts?

The code point stays the same; fonts choose the historical outline.

Unicode groups the Evēla style of the 12th to 14th centuries with the later Dives style because they are phases of one script; fonts handle variant forms. A 2022 Microsoft Word report described unsupported fonts falling back to Tahoma or Calibri and disrupting Dives Akuru shaping. A different outline or blank box can reflect font support, not a different letter. For a specific manuscript, match the font to the source.