What 𐀄 means
It writes the vowel-only syllable u. The Linear B syllabogram U has no consonant before or after its vowel, making it an open syllable. On its own, it is not a complete word; read it with neighboring signs and spelling conventions to work out a Mycenaean Greek word.
Linear B was a palace record system for Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. Its clay tablets tracked goods, workers, deliveries, and offerings. The earliest evidence is associated with Knossos around 1450 BCE; most surviving tablets date to the 13th century BCE.
Linear B adapted many signs from Linear A, a related script. Later Cypriot syllabaries probably descend from the broader Linear A tradition, so these scripts are historically connected but not interchangeable. After the Bronze Age, Linear B's palace role ended; today 𐀄 appears in historical study and transcription.
Why does 𐀄 show as a box?
A font without Linear B coverage cannot draw it. Unicode identifies the character, but fonts supply its visible shape. A square usually means the selected font has no glyph for it; fonts that do support it may draw it differently.
Historical and technical: it belongs in notes about Linear B, not ordinary chat.
Treating it as a complete word loses its one-syllable reading.
What it means when someone sends it to you
2 readingsDon't confuse it with
4Questions people ask
2Is 𐀄 a Greek letter?
No. Linear B used it to write Mycenaean Greek; it belongs to that earlier syllabary, not the later Greek alphabet.
Why does my Linear B font show 𐀄 as a square?
Usually the font lacks a glyph for this character. A font with Linear B coverage can display it; another font may draw its shape differently.
How to type 𐀄
𐀄\10004Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.