What 𑇪 means
A Sri Lankan Brahmi link is proposed; the ten-form is reconstructed.
Illakkam gave each value its own sign, with no place-value notation or zero placeholder. Sri Lankan Brahmi was an early script; inscriptions from the 2nd–4th centuries CE show other numbers, but no sign for one or ten.
A 2025 study found Illakkam in its oldest sampled palm-leaf manuscript, from the 16th century. It also appears in Sinhala literary manuscripts and texts in Pali, a classical language, and in the Sinhala clauses of the 1815 Kandyan Convention, a treaty between Kandyan leaders and Britain. Illakkam fell out of use after 1815; the separate Lith Illakkam astrology set, with zero, lasted into the 20th century.
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Who writes 𑇪
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Questions people ask
1Can I use it for modern arithmetic?
No. It belongs to a historical system, not routine modern number writing; use it when reading or discussing that system.
More like this
10
How to type or find 𑇪
- Also called
- Sinhala Illakkam
- Search it as
- illakam · Kandyan numerals
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
𑇪\111EACodes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.