Ol Onal Letter Ad

In Word for Windows, type 1E5D7 and press Alt+X.

This is Word for Windows’ code-to-character shortcut. If the code runs directly into other text, select only the code first so Word does not read neighboring characters as part of it.

What sound does this Bhumij letter represent?

It represents /d’/, an ejective d in Bhumij.

In pronunciation notation, the apostrophe-like mark after d signals an ejective. The speaker closes the glottis—the opening between the vocal folds—while holding a closure in the mouth, then releases the trapped air in a sharp burst. This is a consonant in a Bhumij word, not a word on its own.

Why do old Ol Onal fonts show Latin letters?

Early custom fonts mapped Ol Onal shapes to Latin characters. Five Ol Onal fonts made from 2013 to 2014 stored the script’s forms through Basic Latin characters instead of Unicode Ol Onal. If an older file depends on one of those fonts, another font can reveal the underlying Latin text; changing fonts does not convert it into Ol Onal.

Mahendra Nath Sardar developed Ol Onal between 1981 and 1992 to write Bhumij, a language spoken in parts of Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal. In 1992, Adim Bhumij Samaj, a Bhumij community organization in Odisha, chose his design in a contest for a new script. The name combines ol (“to draw”) and onal (“shape or diagram”).

The first Bhumij–Ol Onal school opened in Rouanshi, Mayurbhanj, in 1998. Bhumij is also written in Devanagari, Bengali, Odia and Latin scripts. Ol Onal was designed with capital letters called Ol Onal and a separate lowercase set, Galang Onal. The 2022 proposal to encode Ol Onal in Unicode—the shared standard used to store text across devices—reported that teaching and printed materials used the capitals, with no recorded use of Galang Onal in print. The 2022 proposal also documents the script in primers, ritual writing, banners, inscriptions, wedding invitations and wall paintings.