Georgian Letter Qar

It is a deep-throat Georgian consonant, usually romanized q'.

A small burst of air releases from far back in the throat; linguists call this an ejective sound. It can come out as a pop or a rough scrape, and English has no exact match.

It differs from ქ, an aspirated k-like sound, and კ, an ejective k made farther forward. In ყელი (throat), წყალი (water), and ბაყაყი (frog), ყ simply spells a consonant.

Why does Georgian have ყ?

It spells a sound; its written form changed with Georgian scripts.

The earliest surviving Georgian inscriptions date to the fifth century; that dates the script evidence, not the individual shape of ყ.

Asomtavruli was used for monumental and religious writing, while Nuskhuri developed as a manuscript style. Mkhedruli emerged in the tenth century and became the everyday script. Mtavruli is its capital style for emphasis and headings; the related forms Ⴗ, ⴗ, and Ყ write the same letter in different script contexts.

How do you type ყ?

Switch to Georgian, then follow the active layout's key map.

The physical key varies by keyboard layout. In CLDR 43, the Windows Georgian-QWERTY map places ყ on Y; other layouts assign it differently.

A box or blank means the font lacks this character, not that the text is invalid. Older Asomtavruli and Nuskhuri forms are separate characters and may need different font coverage.