NKo High Tone Apostrophe

ߴ marks the high pitch left on a syllable when a vowel is omitted from N’Ko spelling. It belongs inside the word, not at a pause.

Text symbol

What ߴ means

It marks the higher pitch left after a vowel is omitted. N’Ko vowel elision leaves that vowel unwritten; ߴ shows its tone on the preceding syllable, inside the word.

N’Ko is traditionally dated to 1949, though its creation took longer. It was developed for Manding languages and their tones, then spread through Muslim networks for learning to read and write, alongside Arabic literacy and Ajami (African languages written in Arabic script). N’Ko also linked education in people’s first languages with Mande identity.

Part of the collection

N'Ko Alphabet

Who writes ߴ

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Don't confuse it with

NKo Letter Dagbasinna

A separate joining N’Ko letter; ߴ does not join, and fonts may place it at different heights.

Apostrophe

Ordinary apostrophe punctuation; it carries no N’Ko tone value.

Questions people ask

Why does ߴ show as a box on some devices?

Not every system ships a font for the NKo 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.