Saurashtra Letter Ii

It marks a long i vowel at a word’s start. More precisely, it is the independent Saurashtra letter for an “ee” sound held longer. After a consonant, the same vowel is written with an attached sign. On a phonetic Saurashtra keyboard, ii or uppercase I can enter this long vowel.

The Saurashtra script belongs to the Brahmic family of writing systems used across South Asia. As of 2026, its exact earlier lineage remained uncertain. An Aksharavali sample dated 1876 and a primer dated 1880 show the script in use by the late 19th century. During the 1880s, a redesign replaced complex joined-consonant forms with forms using a virama, a mark that tells readers not to add a vowel after a consonant. T. M. Rama Rai standardized the script.

Why did Saurashtra develop a native script?

It keeps Saurashtra sound distinctions in one writing system. The Saurashtra-speaking community moved from Gujarat to southern India, where people also wrote the language in Tamil, Telugu, and Devanagari scripts. Tamil spellings needed extra marks for Saurashtra sounds; Devanagari versions added letters, some later dropped because they represented those sounds poorly. A native script kept such distinctions within one writing system.

As of 2024, community institutions in Madurai, Tanjore, and Salem taught the native script. Saurashtra is also written in Tamil, Devanagari, Roman, and other scripts, so ꢅ identifies text written in the Saurashtra script.

Why does ꢅ show as a box?

The font may not include this Saurashtra letter. Without a Saurashtra-capable font, the text may show an empty square or replacement mark. A font such as Noto Sans Saurashtra can render the script.