Lepcha Letter Pla

Use a Lepcha-capable keyboard layout or character picker.

That enters ᰏ as one dedicated letter. Typing Latin p followed by l produces two Latin letters, not ᰏ; key positions vary by layout.

If ᰏ appears as a box, the font may lack Lepcha coverage. The input can still contain the right character; a fallback font changes its display, not its identity.

What does ᰏ do in a Lepcha word?

It writes the consonant sequence pl at a syllable’s start. The letter name is pla.

Lepcha has dedicated letters for some consonant clusters ending in l: ᰁ writes kla, ᰄ writes gla, and ᰏ writes pla. They share a spelling pattern but represent different consonant sequences.

The Lepcha script's development is placed in the seventeenth or early eighteenth century; Buddhist missionary activity may have helped motivate it. Lepcha tradition credits Thikúng Mensalóng with creating the script.

The first printed Lepcha text dates to 1845, and the oldest identified handwritten materials date to the second half of the nineteenth century. Older manuscripts used vertical columns; later and current writing runs horizontally.

The script was based directly on Tibetan writing. Lepcha texts preserve native beliefs alongside Tibetan Buddhist values, and the script is also used for newspapers, textbooks, poetry, prose, and plays.