What ʽ means
Its meaning depends on the transcription system.
The 1916 guide contrasts pʽ with pʼ: the first marks aspiration; the second glottalization, a brief throat closure. Other systems may use the reversed comma differently.
A specialist sound mark; in prose it can look like a stray quote.
Don't replace it with an apostrophe.
Don't confuse it with
4ʻʼʿʕ
Modifier Letter Turned Comma
Turned comma; Hawaiian and Tongan use it for a glottal stop.
Modifier Letter Apostrophe
Modifier apostrophe; sometimes marks glottalization.
Modifier Letter Left Half Ring
Left half ring for Arabic ʿayn and Hebrew ayin.
Latin Letter Pharyngeal Voiced Fricative
Full phonetic letter for a voiced throat sound.
Combination ideas
1The 1916 guide's aspirated p.
Questions people ask
1Can ʽ stand alone in a transcription?
Yes. In the 1916 guide, it marks weak aspiration by itself.
How to type ʽ
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 02BD, then Alt+X to get ʽ.
Windows
Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).
macOS
Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “modifier letter reversed comma”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 02bd, then Enter or Space.
HTML
ʽCSS
\02BDhow to type ʽ
Code: use \u02BD; HTML: use ʽ.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
ʽ
HTML hex
ʽ
CSS content
content: "\02BD";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%CA%BD
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
2
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.