Osage Small Letter U

It marks Osage u, close to the “oo” in “boot.” In Osage spelling, 𐓶 is the lowercase counterpart of 𐓎 and represents an oral vowel, spoken without nasalizing it. Neighboring sounds can shift its pronunciation slightly, so the English example is a learner’s approximation.

The letter belongs inside Osage words and learning materials; seeing it points to Osage-language writing or study.

Why was the Osage script created?

It gave Osage a practical spelling system suited to its sounds. Before a dedicated orthography, Osage appeared in several Latin-based transcription systems used for Bible translation, language documentation, and study. An early written source attributed to Father Ponziglione dates to circa 1851.

A language program developed a dedicated practical orthography around 2006, using modified or fused Latin letterforms to reduce the pull of English letter values. It was revised in 2014 and adopted and approved by the Osage Nation in 2015. When Osage was proposed for Unicode, the shared text standard, Cherokee came up as an encoding comparison; it did not supply these letterforms.

Why won't 𐓶 display correctly?

A font without Osage coverage can leave it blank. The character can be present in the text even when the selected font cannot draw it. Choose a font that includes Osage characters and use an Osage keyboard to enter them.