Old Permic Letter Bur

On Windows in Microsoft Word, type 10351, then press AltX to enter 𐍑. It is the Old Permic letter Bur, which represented /b/ in medieval Komi writing; in the 15th–17th centuries, Russian scribes also used the alphabet as a cipher.

Text symbol

What 𐍑 means

It represented /b/ in Old Permic.

Old Permic, also called Abur (An Bur, the names of its first two letters), was an alphabet for Komi, a language spoken in northeastern Russia. The Christian missionary Stephen of Perm is traditionally credited with creating it around 1372 for Christian texts. The oldest surviving continuous text appears on the Zyrianskaya Trinity, a painted religious icon from the late 14th century.

The alphabet adapted Greek and Cyrillic models; the Greek letter phi (φ) supplied Bur’s /b/ value. Use 𐍑 when reproducing Old Permic writing, rather than substituting the modern Latin B.

Was Old Permic used to write Russian?

Yes; Russian scribes also used it as a cipher.

In the 15th–17th centuries, Russian scribes wrote some Russian text in Old Permic letters, so readers unfamiliar with the script would not understand it at a glance. By the 17th–18th centuries, Cyrillic had replaced Old Permic for Komi writing.

Who writes 𐍑

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Questions people ask

Why does 𐍑 appear as a box?

The selected font may lack an Old Permic glyph. Try a font with Old Permic coverage, such as Noto Sans Old Permic; this is a font issue, not a different character.