Meroitic Cursive Letter Qa

It marks a consonant transcribed as q. In Meroitic spelling, it carries an a vowel unless another vowel is written.

The earliest surviving Meroitic writing dates to around the second century BCE, perhaps a little earlier. The script developed for the Kushite language as Egyptian writing declined in the region: cursive Meroitic was used for general writing, while hieroglyphic Meroitic appeared in formal inscriptions.

How did cursive differ from Meroitic hieroglyphs?

They wrote the same language in different scripts. Cursive Meroitic drew on Egyptian Demotic, an everyday Egyptian script; hieroglyphic Meroitic drew on Egyptian hieroglyphs. They were distinct scripts, not alternate fonts for the same text.

After the fourth century CE, the Meroitic language gradually gave way to Nubian. By the sixth century, the Coptic script had replaced the Meroitic scripts and had taken three signs from cursive Meroitic to write Nubian.

How do I type 𐦳?

Use a Unicode hexadecimal input method. On Linux, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type 109b3, then press Enter. On Windows, with hexadecimal Unicode input enabled, hold Alt, press + on the numeric keypad, type 109b3, then release Alt. A compatible font must be able to draw the character.

Meroitic writing runs right to left. In text mixed with left-to-right Latin, the order can look surprising.