Kawi Letter U

It writes the independent u vowel in Kawi. Kawi is an abugida: a consonant letter carries an inherent a, while a dependent vowel sign changes that vowel. The Kawi dependent vowel sign 𑼸 modifies a consonant; 𑼈 is used when the vowel has no consonant to attach to.

Kawi came from southern Brahmi through the Pallava script of South India; late Pallava and early Kawi forms overlapped. The Kawi encoding proposal identifies the Plumpungan stele, an inscribed stone near Salatiga in central Java, as its earliest known early-Kawi record, dated c. 750 CE. From the mid-8th century, Kawi recorded land grants, royal orders, and government-office records. A Kawi-inscribed gold ring, probably used as a seal, dates to the 11th–13th century.

From the 8th to 16th centuries, Kawi carried Old Javanese, Sanskrit, Old Malay, Old Balinese, and Old Sundanese. Its later regional forms became ancestors of scripts including Javanese and Balinese.

Why does Kawi U look different across fonts?

Kawi letterforms changed across centuries and regions. The reference typeface in Unicode 17.0.0 is based mainly on early inscriptions, with some later forms adapted. Other Kawi fonts can draw 𑼈 differently without changing the character.

Kawi's active use gave way to other scripts from the 16th century. In the 21st century, renewed interest has brought some Kawi into social-media writing of modern Javanese and Indonesian.