Sunuwar Letter Hamso

It writes h by itself and adds aspiration after another consonant.

The Sunuwar h, called Hamso, stands for h on its own. In older Jenticha spelling, it follows an unaspirated consonant: 𑯆𑯋 spells k with a puff of breath, and 𑯌𑯋 spells ch with a puff. Hamso adds that breath; it is not itself a second consonant.

How did Jenticha spelling change?

It began with a 22-letter alphabet and later gained dedicated aspirated letters.

Krishna Bahadur Jentich developed Jenticha in 1942 to write Sunuwar; its first alphabet had 22 letters. The script appears in school primers, poetry, community histories, newspapers, government records, and academic work.

In contemporary publications, Nepal's Hamso magazine uses an alphabetic approach without an inherent vowel, while Sikkim Herald uses abugida-style spelling, where consonants can carry an unwritten vowel. At the turn of the 21st century, dedicated letters for aspirated sounds such as 𑯛 were added, so both spellings can coexist. Jenticha's alphabetic structure was modeled on Latin, but it was not derived from it; a later letter for a long a sound was borrowed from Limbu.

Can a legacy Sunuwar font show different text?

Yes; the font can draw Hamso while the file stores Latin.

A 2011 proposal describes Kirat1, a Jenticha font that mapped Sunuwar shapes onto Latin key positions. Such a file can show Hamso in that font but reveal Latin characters when opened with another.

Sunuwar fonts also vary in proportions and regional design choices, so the shape can change without changing the letter. A box or blank usually means the font lacks glyph support.