What 𛰛 means
It is an arc consonant; its sound depends on the writing system. In Duployan shorthand, signs join into flowing outlines, and “J” names an arc-shaped consonant type. The sound is not fixed by the letter name.
The shorthand was developed to write French quickly. An early version appeared in 1860; the Duployé method followed in 1867, simplifying Aimé Paris’s earlier French shorthand.
why was Duployan adapted for Chinook Jargon?
It was adapted to write local languages. French priest Jean-Marie Le Jeune adapted Duployan for Chinook Jargon, a regional common language, and several Indigenous languages in interior British Columbia. The Kamloops Wawa periodical printed the adapted writing in 1891, and readers taught it to one another.
In this Chinook adaptation, 𛰛 represents the sound written “sh” and also stands for the numeral 8.
Don't confuse it with
1Questions people ask
1Why does 𛰛 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 𛰛
𛰛\1BC1BCodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.