Limbu Small Letter Pa

ᤵ marks final p in a Limbu syllable; no vowel follows, so it is not a whole syllable. Small letters mark syllable-final consonants.

Text symbol

What ᤵ means

It marks final p, with no vowel after it. A regular Limbu consonant carries a short “o” vowel; ᤵ supplies only the ending.

How did the Limbu script develop?

The script was made to write Limbu.

Tradition credits Srijunga Hang (Sirijanga) with devising it in the 9th century. A Limbu alphabet book catalogued under Sirijanga is tentatively dated about 1730 or earlier. The oldest known collected Limbu writings came from Darjeeling in the 1850s; revival began at Kalimpong in 1925. Printed ritual texts appeared especially after 1990, alongside literature and teaching. Its forms range from nineteenth-century manuscripts to early-modern and modern writing, with different letter shapes.

Part of the collection

ᤁ

Limbu Script & Alphabet

Who writes ᤵ

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Don't confuse it with

Cyrillic Small Letter Che

Cyrillic small letter che; UTS #39 lists it as a skeleton match, so it can pass for this Limbu letter in some fonts and when pasted.

પ

Gujarati Letter Pa

Gujarati letter pa; UTS #39 lists it as a confusable of this Limbu letter, a mix-up when copying text from mixed-script sources.

Coptic Small Letter Fei

Coptic small letter fei; UTS #39 lists it as a skeleton match, so it can look similar in some fonts.

Questions people ask

Why does ᤵ show as a box on some devices?

Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.