Mandaic Letter Ak

Inside a word, read Ak as the first sound in “kite.”

Origins remain uncertain: the script may have developed from cursive Aramaic or Parthian chancery writing between the second and seventh centuries CE. The earliest surviving evidence includes incantations on clay bowls and metal sheets from the fifth to seventh centuries CE.

Mandaic uses the broader Aramaic alphabet order and is historically related to Syriac. Mandaeans, a religious community from southern Mesopotamia, developed it for Classical Mandaic, an Eastern Aramaic language used in liturgy. Later Mandaic writing includes religious literature, and Neo-Mandaic is a spoken variety.