What ㆖ means
On GNOME, press CtrlShiftU, type 3196, then press Enter or Space.
What does ㆖ mean in Kanbun?
It marks the top level in a nested return sequence. Kanbun is the Japanese way of reading Classical Chinese with marks that show how to reorder the text into Japanese word order. Kaeriten, or “return marks,” show when to jump back to text that belongs earlier in Japanese; ㆖ marks an outer, upper-level jump, and numeral marks can identify a nested jump inside it.
A record of reading the Kegon Sutra, a Buddhist scripture, called Kegonkyō Kanjōki contains a kaeriten example dated 788. Kaeriten developed from older proofreading marks; a report in 1912 standardized conventions after schools differed in their details.
Within the notation, ㆖ marks the upper tier, the middle, and the lower. Numeral marks can mark an inner return, which this larger three-level hierarchy can enclose.
Why does ㆖ look different from 上?
㆖ is a dedicated Kanbun annotation mark, not the ordinary ideograph 上. Some fonts provide the mark at full size for an annotation-aware layout engine to scale and place beside vertical text. In plain text, it can look oversized or misplaced; a font without the glyph may show a box.
Scholarly and instructional: it marks a reading aid in Japanese Kanbun texts.
Don't read ㆖ as ordinary 上; it is a Kanbun reading mark.
What it means when someone sends it to you
2 readingsIt marks the outer return around a separately marked inner passage.
Don't confuse it with
1
Questions people ask
1Why does ㆖ show as a box?
The font usually lacks ㆖. If it appears at the wrong size or place, the viewer may lack annotation-aware layout support.
More like this
10
How to type or find ㆖
- Also called
- 上点 · jōten
- Search it as
- joten · kaeriten · kanbun · return mark · kanbun mark
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
㆖\3196Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.