What ⾔ means
No. ⾔ is an index symbol; 言 is written in words.
Indexes file characters by recurring parts. ⾔ names the category.
What does ⾔ mark?
A label for finding characters in an index.
An ancestor of 言 appears in early oracle-bone inscriptions—records carved on bones and turtle shells—and bronze inscriptions. The Han-era Shuowen Jiezi dictionary grouped characters under 540 headings. The Ming-era Zihui reorganized the index into 214 radicals in 1615; the 1716 Kangxi Dictionary adopted it.
Don't confuse it with
1Questions people ask
1Why does ⾔ 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 ⾔
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 2F94, then Alt+X to get ⾔.
Windows
Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).
macOS
Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “kangxi radical speech”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 2f94, then Enter or Space.
HTML
⾔CSS
\2F94How to type ⾔
Enter U+2F94 in an input method that supports Unicode code-point entry; 言 is separate.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
⾔
HTML hex
⾔
CSS content
content: "\2F94";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E2%BE%94
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
3
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.