Meroitic Cursive Letter Ma

𐦨 is the Meroitic “ma” sign, a syllable rather than a word. A vowel can change its built-in “a.” It belonged to Kush’s general-purpose cursive script; font support affects its display.

Text symbol

What 𐦨 means

It adds “ma” inside a word. A written vowel can change its built-in “a”; the rest of the word supplies meaning. Only names and a few Meroitic words are understood.

Meroitic writing arose in Kush, a Nile kingdom south of Egypt, in the third century BCE; the earliest dated cursive text is about 200 BCE. Based on Egyptian Demotic, Meroitic Cursive served general writing.

Meroitic Hieroglyphs, based on Egyptian hieroglyphs, appeared on royal monuments and temples; their matching ma is 𐦉. Cursive ran right to left. Meroitic was gradually replaced by Nubian after the fourth century CE; by the sixth century, Coptic writing had superseded both scripts and borrowed three cursive signs for Nubian.

Who writes 𐦨

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Questions people ask

Why does 𐦨 show as a box on some devices?

Not every system ships a font for the Meroitic Cursive block. Where none is installed, the character shows as an empty box; adding a font such as Noto fixes it. The character itself is still correct and copies correctly.