Tamil Letter O

It represents Tamil’s short-o vowel.

At the beginning of a syllable, ஒ stands as an independent vowel. Tamil spelling distinguishes vowel length, so it is not interchangeable with long ஓ. After a consonant, the same vowel is written with an attached vowel sign, as in கொ. Shaping can draw that sign beside or around the consonant.

How did this Tamil vowel develop?

It developed through changing Tamil writing traditions. Tamil-Brahmi appears in early Tamil inscriptions on rock shelters and excavated pottery. Its advent is dated to the middle of the third century BCE at the earliest. The script was adapted to write Tamil’s sounds.

Early Tamil-Brahmi did not consistently mark short and long e and o, though Tamil distinguished those vowels in speech. Around the end of the Arikamedu period, a dot called pulli was used to mark short e and o. Tamil-Brahmi developed toward Vatteluttu, a later script. Tamil script and Grantha, a related southern script used for Sanskrit in the Tamil region, developed as related traditions; use during the Chola dynasty helped standardize Tamil script.