Mandaic punctuation

It marks a major break in Mandaic text.

Mandaic uses punctuation sparingly. A 2008 Unicode proposal describes a smaller mark for a minor break, like a comma, and a larger one for a major break, like a full stop. This larger mark, ࡞, can appear at the beginning or end of a section, making the boundary visible.

Mandaic script developed from writing used in the late Parthian period, the final centuries of the Parthian Empire; its recognizable form is especially associated with the second century CE. Its history also connects it to the regional Elymaic and Characene scripts and to Parthian chancery writing, the formal writing of the empire’s administration. Its letter order follows the wider Aramaic alphabet tradition also seen in Hebrew and Syriac.

Why can Mandaic punctuation appear smaller?

A manuscript setting can show the same character at a smaller size.

In religious manuscript colophons—the closing notes at the end of a manuscript—this mark is typically shown smaller. That reduced display is not a separate Unicode character; its size is typographic.

A 2008 encoding proposal records traditional and liturgical use of Mandaic writing in Iran, Iraq, and elsewhere. Modern Neo-Mandaic spelling, one modern written form of Mandaic, also uses it as a section delimiter.