Limbu letter dha

It is a Limbu consonant letter whose base carries a vowel. The label “dha” names the consonant; the unmarked form also supplies Limbu’s inherent short, open-o vowel.

An origin tradition credits the script to a ninth-century King Srijunga. A British Library inventory describes a Limbu alphabet book from the early 18th century associated with the later Limbu writer and spiritual leader Sirijanga (Rupihang, around 1704–1741), who was said to be a reincarnation of that ruler; it tentatively dates the manuscript to about 1730 or earlier. Unicode’s account gives writings collected in the 1850s as the oldest known. The manuscript date is tentative, so these are distinct historical landmarks.

A modern form began developing in Kalimpong in 1925, reviving Limbu writing and spreading through Darjeeling and Sikkim. After 1990, religious and literary publishing in the Limbu script grew in Nepal; the script also came to mark Limbu/Yakthung identity.

How does ᤎ work in a Limbu word?

The base has a vowel; added signs complete its syllable. A vowel sign replaces the inherent vowel; a mark joined below the main letter adds a consonant within a cluster, while a small-form letter marks the final consonant.

Limbu descends from Brahmi, an older South Asian script family. Unicode encodes Limbu’s joined-below medial signs using a technical model also used for Tibetan; this describes an encoding design, while the script’s ancestry is Brahmi.

Why does ᤎ look different?

Its shape can reflect a different period of Limbu writing. Unicode distinguishes manuscript forms from the nineteenth century, early-modern print forms used from 1928 to the 1970s, and current writing used since the 1970s; some glyphs differ markedly.