Kawi Letter Vocalic Ll

It represents an l sound used as a vowel. Here, “syllabic” means the sound is the center of a syllable by itself. In the Sanskrit-derived series behind this name, vocalic L is the short partner and vocalic LL the long one; the double L is a label, not two characters.

Unlike a vowel mark attached to a consonant, this independent vowel is written as a full letter.

Kawi grew from Pallava writing

Kawi developed from the older Pallava script, part of a Brahmi-derived writing tradition. The oldest record of early Kawi is a stone inscription at Plumpungan in Central Java, dated around 750 CE. Early Kawi recorded land grants, royal orders and other official documents; it later also carried literature in Old Javanese, an earlier form of Javanese.

Kawi contributed to later scripts used for Javanese, Balinese and other regional languages. Since the 16th century, other scripts have replaced Kawi in active use. A 2020 Unicode proposal notes that communities reviving Kawi use it in social apps and image posts.

Why might 𑼍 look like a box?

Your current font may not support Kawi shaping. Without Kawi coverage, the character can appear as a box or fallback mark.

Across fonts, Kawi designs may follow a normalized early form or a later-inspired style; the outline can vary while the underlying letter stays the same.