Tai Tham digit four

It is the Tham-series numeral for four.

The Tham series is for religious and manuscript writing; the Hora series is its secular counterpart. ᪔ still means four—the numeral set signals the text’s register.

Tham digits religious or secular?

They keep the same value but mark different writing settings.

Tai Tham developed from Old Mon writing. It first served Buddhist monasteries, where people wrote Pali (a Buddhist literary language) and Tai Yuan (Lan Na’s local language) on palm leaves. Later manuscripts included chronicles, law, astrology, medicine, and poetry. Tai Tham history is attested from c. 1300; a dated Lanna Tham inscription is from 1376, while the earliest surviving Dhamma-script palm-leaf evidence dates to the 15th century.

Tham writing spread through Buddhist communities in Lan Na and Laos and among Tai Lue and Khün people. New Tai Lue digits were adapted from Tai Tham’s Hora series; ᧔ is the related four in that distinct script. “Lanna” is useful shorthand, but the manuscript culture crossed modern borders.

why is ᪔ missing or hard to type?

A box means the selected font cannot display ᪔.

Font coverage, shaping, and input are separate: the font supplies glyph shapes, shaping support places Tai Tham characters correctly, and a keyboard or input method produces them. For repeated entry, choose a Tai Tham input layout; display requires a font that covers the script.