What 𑼖 means
It marks the “ng” sound, followed by Kawi’s built-in a. In English, the ng in “singer” is a close sound comparison. A bare Kawi consonant carries an inherent a; a vowel sign changes that vowel, while a vowel-killer removes it. A conjunct joins consonants into a cluster.
The oldest recorded Early Kawi is the Plumpungan stele, an inscribed stone dated about 750 CE. Early Kawi recorded land grants, royal orders, and administrative documents. Later, it was used for Old Javanese literature, written in an earlier form of the Javanese language.
How is 𑼖 connected to Javanese and Balinese?
Kawi is historically linked to both scripts. Kawi grew from the Pallava script, part of the southern Brahmi tradition, and was adapted for local languages and palm-leaf writing. Javanese and Balinese scripts developed from Kawi.
As of 2026, people reviving Kawi also use it to write modern Javanese or Indonesian in social media posts. Historically, Kawi was also used for Sanskrit and older forms of Malay, Balinese, and Sundanese; the language and spelling shape how a letter is read.
Its register is historical, scholarly, or revivalist.
A different historical shape may still be the same letter.
Part of the collection
Who writes 𑼖
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Related characters
2
Questions people ask
2Why does Kawi nga look different in old writing?
Kawi letterforms varied by period and region, so the same letter can have different historical shapes.
Does Kawi nga always have an a sound?
As a bare consonant, yes: 𑼖 carries an inherent a. A vowel sign can change it, while the vowel-killer removes it.
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11
How to type or find 𑼖
- Also called
- nga · ṅa
- Search it as
- Kawi nga · Kawi ng · Kawi keyboard · Old Kawi
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
𑼖\11F16Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.