What ᠀ means
It marks the start of a passage, section, or line.
In a manuscript, the Mongolian head mark can also show the recto—the front side of a page. A British Library catalogue describes a Mongolian manuscript dated 1716 with chapter markers on recto pages, but does not identify them as birgas.
The Tibetan initial yig mgo and the Phags-pa single head mark are related opening signs. Traditional Mongolian is written vertically. When a layout places it beside horizontal writing, Unicode 17.0 describes rotating the Mongolian text as a vertical run; ᠀ turns with it, so a sideways display can come from layout rather than a different character.
A structural opening mark in traditional Mongolian writing.
Part of the collection
Don't confuse it with
1
Related characters
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Questions people ask
1Why does Mongolian birga look sideways?
It can. In horizontal composition, Unicode 17.0 describes rotating the vertical Mongolian text as a run, so the birga turns with it.
More like this
10
Collections with ᠀
2
How to type or find ᠀
- Also called
- birga · Mongolian head mark
- Search it as
- Mongolian opening mark · traditional Mongolian punctuation · yig mgo · Phags-pa head mark · Mongolian birga keyboard · bichig
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
᠀\1800Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.