What 𐣼 means
Read it as five, not as a letter. Hatran 5 is a dedicated number sign in Hatran writing, a script used for a local form of Aramaic at Hatra, in present-day Iraq.
Why was Hatran number five used?
It counted quantities in records and inscriptions. Hatran numerals appear on stone inscriptions, economic records, and inscribed pottery fragments called ostraca.
Hatran numbers use right-to-left sequences of signs for 1, 5, 10, 20, and 100; repeating the one sign writes 2, 3, and 4. Totals are additive. The pattern resembles earlier Imperial Aramaic numerals, where the signs for 3 and 2 form five.
Inscriptions found at Hatra date from 98–97 BCE until circa 241 CE. The Hatran five-sign has the same shape as the five-sign in Old Syriac inscriptions, an early Syriac writing tradition. Some Middle Persian numeral signs may have been influenced by Hatran, but that link is uncertain. As Hatran use declined, Middle Persian notation replaced it.
How do I type Hatran number five?
Use Unicode entry; the ordinary 5 key inserts another sign. A Unicode character search or code-entry feature can insert Hatran Number Five. Hatran words and numbers run right to left; mixed Latin and Hatran text can appear out of order if bidirectional layout is faulty. If the font lacks Hatran coverage, the sign may show as a box.
Historical and technical: it belongs in Hatran text, while 5 is the ordinary modern digit.
A box usually signals missing Hatran font coverage.
Don't confuse it with
1Questions people ask
1Why does 𐣼 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 𐣼
𐣼\108FCCodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.