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ប

khmer letter ba

Khmer Letter Ba

ប is Khmer's ba consonant, not an emoji or a word on its own. In Khmer writing, its neighbors shape the syllable and the whole word gives the meaning. It belongs to a Brahmi-derived Khmer script with a long inscriptional history.

Text symbol
Also called
Cambodian ba · Khmer b · ba consonant
Search it as
ba · b · cambodian · consonant · alphabet · keyboard · subscript · ប
Shows up in
Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws

What ប means

It identifies a consonant; the word around it supplies the reading. Khmer consonants carry an inherent vowel, and dependent signs can sit before, above, below, or after the base letter.

The Khmer script descends from South Indian Brahmi traditions; the exact source is unsettled, though early regional inscriptions resemble Pallava. Thai, Lao, Myanmar, and Old Mon are related Brahmi-descended scripts, not interchangeable alphabets. The ancient Khmer inscriptional record spans the sixth to fourteenth centuries CE; the reviewed sources date the script, not a separate first appearance for this individual glyph.

One documented purpose was royal and religious record keeping: a tenth-century East Mebon stele records a temple dedicated to Shiva. Khmer is Cambodia's official script and also writes regional minority languages; ប remains a letter inside words.

Why does ប sound different in Khmer words?

Its neighbors choose the vowel and cluster reading. Khmer has two consonant series with different inherent vowels; dependent signs adjust them, while coeng makes a following consonant subscript.

Two full consonants keep an intervening inherent vowel, so a Khmer subscript changes the syllable structure. Compare បា “father” with បៅ “to suck”: complete words reveal more than the base letter.

A subscript is encoded as coeng plus the next consonant, then shaped by the font; the stored sequence is not the finished visual form.

Neutral in Khmer writing; its tone comes from the word, not the bare letter.

Do not translate a lone ប without its surrounding word.

What it means when someone sends it to you

3 readings
Sent by itself
A letter fragment; surrounding Khmer text supplies the message.
Inside a Khmer word
The ba consonant helps form that word's syllable.
Below another consonant
A subscript ba helps form a consonant cluster.

Don't confuse it with

4
ក
Khmer Letter Ka
shares “khmer”, “letter”
ខ
Khmer Letter Kha
shares “khmer”, “letter”
គ
Khmer Letter Ko
shares “khmer”, “letter”
ឃ
Khmer Letter Kho
shares “khmer”, “letter”

Combination ideas

3
“father” or “male of an animal”; /baː/.
“to suck”; /baw/.
“blockhouse”; /pɔːm/ with a series mark.

Worth knowing

  • Khmer calls a subscript consonant a coeng, literally “foot” or “leg.”

Questions people ask

1

Why does ប change shape in a cluster?

It is being rendered as a subscript: coeng joins it to the base consonant.

How to type ប

Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 1794, then Alt+X to get ប.
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 “khmer letter ba”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 1794, then Enter or Space.
HTML
ប
CSS
\1794
How to type ប
Select a Khmer Unicode keyboard; key positions differ by layout.
Khmer subscript
Enter coeng before the following consonant to form its subscript.
One glyph
Copy it from the palette above instead of changing keyboard layouts.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
ប
HTML hex
ប
CSS content
content: "\1794";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E1%9E%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.

Families this belongs to

1

Southeast Asian scripts2,070 symbols

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