Old Hungarian small letter ef

It writes the f sound in Old Hungarian.

Old Hungarian writing, also called rovásírás, was used for words and inscriptions, including carving in wood. It is associated with Székely communities in Transylvania.

The script developed over time; evidence places it around the 8th century and connects it with Old Turkic writing, but not through a simple direct descent. Short inscriptions survive from the 12th–13th centuries, and the first surviving alphabet list dates to about 1483. Proposed 10th-century inscriptions remain disputed.

why does 𐳌 show as a box?

It needs a font with Old Hungarian coverage.

The character identity is encoded separately from its drawn shape. If the active font lacks Old Hungarian letters, an app or browser may show a missing-glyph box.

A 2024 study describes cultural identity as a recurring role of surviving monuments. During the 20th-century revival, the script was used for education, heritage displays, and decoration; esoteric and radical-right groups also adopted it. Those associations belong to particular users and settings, not to this letter's sound.

is 𐳌 a rune?

It looks runiform, but it belongs to Old Hungarian writing.

The Hungarian name rovásírás is used for the script, which is also informally called runic writing. The larger script has documented comparisons with Old Turkic inscriptions from Orkhon and Yenisei; some signs have also been traced to Glagolitic. These script-wide connections do not establish a direct ancestor for this letter.

Alone, 𐳌 is one letter or a script sample. The surrounding letters are needed to read a word.