Tai Le letter Oo

It marks the vowel in a Tai Le syllable. It helps spell words; by itself, it does not make a complete Tai Le word or message.

Tai Le normally writes an initial consonant before the vowel and a final consonant after it. A tone mark, when used, comes after the whole syllable, so the surrounding letters matter when reading it.

What does the 1407 scroll tell us?

It shows older related writing, not when this letter began. A Chinese scroll from the Ming dynasty dated 1407 shows writing used by related Tay communities, with strong influence from Burmese script. It gives context for the wider script family, not a date for ᥨ itself. One interpretation is that Tay political communities adopted writing to strengthen their position without adopting Theravada Buddhism, a branch of Buddhism.

Tai Le spelling later changed: after 1954, small marks that indicate tone were added to the modern system. In 1988, separate tone letters—typed as characters of their own—replaced those attached marks. Older Lik forms appear in Tai Nuea manuscripts. Related Lik scripts have been used by Tai communities from Yunnan toward northern Myanmar and Assam. New Tai Lue is a separate script, despite its similar name.

How do I type ᥨ?

Use a Unicode character picker or hex-entry tool. Search by the character’s name or code point; a hex-entry tool works when the input method supports Unicode values.

If the letter appears as an empty box, the font may lack Tai Le coverage. The text can still contain the same character even when the font cannot draw it.