Saurashtra Letter Va

ꢮ is a Saurashtra consonant letter with an inherent a vowel.

With no vowel sign, its conventional reading is va: a consonant followed by the built-in a vowel. A vowel sign changes that vowel. When sent alone, it identifies the letter or serves as a sample of Saurashtra writing.

Earlier Saurashtra writing used a version of Telugu in the 17th and 18th centuries. The alphabet used today developed in the 1880s and favors a visible virama—a mark that cancels a consonant’s inherent vowel—over older joined consonant forms. Since the end of the nineteenth century, books have appeared in Telugu, Tamil, Devanagari, and native Saurashtra script. A 1920 decision favored Devanagari. A February 2024 community update listed institutions teaching the native script.

Why does ꢮ look different?

Fonts control its shape, and some fonts lack Saurashtra support.

The Unicode Saurashtra chart says its sample shapes are not prescriptive, so Saurashtra-capable fonts may draw ꢮ differently. A font without Saurashtra support may show a missing-glyph box or fallback; the character itself remains ꢮ.