Limbu Letter Ka

It marks syllable-initial k with Limbu’s inherent short open-o vowel.

By itself, ᤁ sounds roughly like k followed by the open “o” vowel [ɔ]. Add Limbu’s A vowel sign when the syllable needs /a/: “ka” is a different spelling, not what the bare letter says.

Who invented the Sirijanga script?

Tradition credits Sirijanga, but the surviving record spans different periods. An alphabet book tentatively linked to him is catalogued to the early 18th century; writings regarded as the oldest in the standard chronology were collected in the 1850s. The modern form began developing in 1925. Older Limbu orthography recorded an inherent /a/; modern Limbu uses the short open [ɔ] vowel.

The script was revived for writing Limbu and later appeared in schoolbooks, literature, and Mundhum, Limbu ritual teaching and oral tradition. A printed Mundhum edition used Devanagari for technical reasons in 1961; after 1990, Mundhum texts appeared more directly in the local script. Limbu belongs to the Brahmic family of writing systems. Digital text uses a Tibetan-style model for subjoined final consonants—smaller forms attached beneath the main letter—while the Limbu language itself is only distantly related to Lepcha and Tibetan.