Sunuwar Letter Appho

Appho represents a short, central vowel, usually described as schwa /ə/.

To an English-speaking ear, it is close to the weak vowel in “about.” The 2021 Unicode proposal says the original repertoire had 22 letters and assigns Appho an open “a” sound (/a/); later descriptions give a relaxed central vowel /ə/, or a range between them.

The Unicode proposal credits Krishna Bahadur Jentich with developing the modern script in 1942 for writing Sunuwar. A community history separately recounts animal-skin inscriptions discussed in the 1940s and a 1943 conference about developing the script; it says Jentich later collected and ordered the letters in the 1960s.

Why is Appho written differently in Nepal and Sikkim?

The regional convention decides when the vowel is written.

In Nepal and Sikkim, the same vowel is not written in the same places. Nepal’s alphabetic spelling may write Appho wherever /ə/ occurs. Sikkim’s abugida—a system where a consonant carries a default vowel—generally writes Appho at a word beginning; the same midword sound is left implicit.

In the early 2000s, users added 𑯖 Aal for long /aː/, alongside the short /a/ value sometimes given for Appho. The 2021 Unicode proposal said there was no formal standard, though the Sunuwar Welfare Society of Nepal promoted a practical repertoire. When reading or editing, follow the spelling used in that publication.

How do I type Appho?

Use a Unicode Sunuwar layout; the key depends on that layout.

A 2021 proposal documents legacy fonts such as Kirat1, Kaatich, and Mukdum that mapped Latin keys to Sunuwar forms. Text entered through those mappings may contain Latin characters rather than Unicode Appho.