Marchen Letter Nga

It represents the “ng” sound at the end of “sing.” In a Marchen syllable, the base consonant carries an inherent “a” vowel.

Marchen wrote Zhang-Zhung, an extinct language. Its ancestry is described differently: one account dates its development from Tibetan to around the 7th century, while Unicode 16.0 calls it derived from Brahmi, an ancient Indian script, and says its writing model follows Tibetan. Tradition also links it to the ancient Zhang-Zhung kingdom. Zhang-Zhung use lasted until around the 10th century. In 2013, the Unicode proposal reported that no early Marchen texts were known and cited a Zhang-Zhung inscription on a bronze seal at Menri Monastery as an early example.

Where is Marchen used?

It belongs to Bön writing, a Tibetan religious tradition. Marchen wrote Zhang-Zhung and also writes Tibetan. Unicode 16.0 describes its use in modern Bön literature and architectural inscriptions.

Marchung, Pungchen, Pungchung, and Drusha are related Bön script traditions. They are separate scripts, not alternate names or forms of 𑱵.

How do Marchen consonants form a syllable?

Several consonants can stack vertically to form one syllable. Vowel signs sit around the stack; subjoined nga 𑲕 joins below a base consonant, while 𑱵 is the base letter.

Marchen has no tsheg, the syllable separator used in Tibetan, between syllables, so a line can be hard to divide. The 2013 proposal suggests an invisible zero-width space where an explicit boundary is needed.