Javanese letter Sa Murda

Sa Murda marks respect in Javanese names and titles. It is the honorific counterpart of ordinary ꦱ, used within a proper name rather than as a general capital at a sentence’s start. In the name Sularta, the marked letter can appear inside the name.

The history of Sa Murda belongs to the wider story of Javanese writing. The Javanese script developed from Brahmi, an ancient South Asian script, through Pallava and Kawi, earlier scripts in the same lineage. Old Javanese writing appears in Central Javanese inscriptions dated 743 CE and 787 CE. The script shifted from Kawi around the 14th–15th centuries and served daily writing in Java from the 15th century into the early 20th century. Those dates track the script, not the first appearance of ꦯ.

Murda is a set of honorific letters, not a capitalization system. If the first syllable of a name has no murda form, a later eligible syllable can carry one; highly honored names may use more than one.

What does it mean when someone sends Sa Murda?

Alone, ꦯ is a letter; it does not tell you why someone sent it. In a Javanese name or title, it marks an honorific spelling. Without that context, ask what text or name it belongs to before reading an attitude into it.