Multani Letter Va

It marked the consonant va in Multani writing.

Multani was used to write Seraiki (also spelled Saraiki), Sindhi and Punjabi in the Multan region and northern Sindh. It developed from Landa, a family of regional scripts used for commercial writing.

How did Multani move from records to print?

It began in routine and commercial writing, then reached literature.

Multani took its recognizable regional form in the 18th century. The Baptist Missionary Press, a religious printing house, made metal type for Christian literature; the first book printed in Multani was a New Testament in 1819. In the latter half of the 19th century, British administration promoted Arabic script as the standard for the languages of Sindh. Multani continued after that shift; by the first quarter of the 20th century, its letter set had narrowed, and some letters represented more than one sound. As of 2026, Seraiki is written in an Arabic script extended with extra letters.

Why can the letter look different?

Multani has no single standard shape.

The encoded character covers historically attested forms, while the font chooses which shape to display; printed and handwritten samples differ. Multani usually leaves vowels unwritten except in certain positions, so surrounding letters help reveal a word's reading.