Georgian Letter We

A historical Georgian letter for a “w” glide into “ee.”

Old Georgian wi spellings—the brief “w” glide into “ee”—used the related Asomtavruli form Ⴣ, including in spellings of Greek loanwords; ჳ is its Mkhedruli counterpart. The earliest uncontested evidence for Georgian writing is from the 5th century; that dates the writing tradition, not this exact letter. The sound later merged with the two-letter sequence ვი (Georgian ვ followed by ი, roughly “v” + “ee”), and the 1879 literacy reform removed ჳ as redundant.

Is ჳ still used?

Historical in Georgian; convention-dependent in Svan.

Svan orthography has more than one convention. One account records ჳ among spellings considered for Svan’s w-like sound before the marked form უ̂ was adopted. A scholarly transliteration—writing sounds with Latin letters—can render ჳ as w. Other Svan descriptions use the two-letter spellings ჳი and ჳე for dialect-specific front-rounded vowels, made with the tongue forward and lips rounded. These are distinct conventions; check the edition before assigning a reading.

The font draws ჳ as a text character, and Georgian letters keep their shape instead of joining neighboring letters. If it appears as a box, the font may lack the glyph.