Sora Sompeng Letter Dah

It represents a retroflex d, made with the tongue curled back.

Its technical notation is [ɖ], in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), a system for writing speech sounds. In Sora Sompeng, 𑃔 marks a consonant within a word; the surrounding letters and the word determine the full reading.

Why was the Sora Sompeng script created?

It gave Sora writers another way to write their language.

Sora is a language spoken by the Sora people. In 1936, Mangei Gomango introduced Sora Sompeng amid disagreement over an IPA-based missionary writing system and the Telugu and Odia scripts, which are used to write those languages.

Sora Sompeng was an alternative to those scripts, not their descendant. Its letter shapes have been described as loosely influenced by Latin or IPA forms and Telugu writing. Ol Chiki and Warang Citi are also community-created scripts for Munda languages, a family that includes Sora; they are parallel creations, not ancestors. The Mattar Banom movement grew around the script in 1936 and associated it with Akshara Brahma, a sacred concept, and Sora deities.

How does 𑃔 work inside a word?

Its surrounding letters help settle how it is pronounced.

Sora Sompeng consonant letters carry a short, unstressed vowel sound. When consonants form a cluster, the script has no visible mark to cancel that vowel, so the word helps readers decide whether to say it. The sequence 𑃝𑃔 represents a retroflex r, pronounced with the tongue curled back; its technical notation is [ɽ].