Dogra Letter I

New Dogra reads it as i; Old Dogra reads it as u or ū.

The Unicode chart follows New Dogra; Old Dogra assigns the same character to u or ū. These are romanized vowel values, and the line over ū marks a long u sound. A glyph alone cannot tell you which spelling system a historical document uses, so check its neighboring spellings before translating it.

New Dogra distinguishes an independent vowel letter from a dependent vowel sign. 𑠂 is the independent i letter; 𑠭 is the related sign attached to a consonant.

How did Dogra become a writing standard?

Dogra grew from Takri writing and became a state standard. Dogra is a Jammu form of the broader Takri tradition. Takri developed from Devāśeṣa, an intermediate script descended from Sharada, an earlier regional writing system. Unicode records Dogra writing for Dogri in Jammu and Kashmir in the 17th century.

Dogra was standardized in the 1860s to support administration. Old Dogra served informal and commercial writing; the standardized New Dogra form was used for official documents, currency, stamps, postcards, judicial papers and literature. Its reform clarified vowel distinctions and was influenced by Devanagari and Gurmukhi.

Dogri later moved into Urdu and then Devanagari in official and educational use. In September 2026, a report described new public signs in Jammu and planned Dogra-script classes, bringing the script into public view again.