Odia vowel sign e

It replaces the consonant’s built-in vowel with e. An Odia consonant normally carries an unwritten vowel. The e-matra changes that vowel without requiring a new consonant letter: କ plus େ gives କେ.

This mark belongs to an evolving writing tradition. Recognisable Odia-script records date to the 11th century; an Odia-language inscription in Kalinga, an earlier regional script, dates to 1051. These dates describe the script’s history, not the first appearance of this exact e-mark.

Why is the Odia e mark on the left?

It is pronounced after the consonant but drawn before it. Text-rendering software arranges the stored consonant-plus-vowel sequence into its written shape. Do not rearrange the characters to imitate their appearance.

With a consonant cluster—a group of consonants written together—the mark appears before the whole group, rather than between its members.