Tibetan Half-Eight Digit

It marks seven and a half at the end of a number.

The half mark carries value and belongs at the end of a longer number. Unicode reads a half-number as 0.5 less than its base digit; its example ༤༬ represents 42.5. So ༱ is 7.5, while ༨ is whole eight. ༱ is one encoded character, not an ordinary eight followed by a separate slash.

A 1933 Tibetan postage stamp uses it for 7½ skar, a unit of money. A 1909 coin for the same amount spells it out in Tibetan as skar phyed brgyad (“half eight”) instead. These examples show a practical fraction-and-denomination use.

Why are Tibetan half digits disputed?

The standard and art readings assign the slash different jobs.

The Unicode Standard reads the slash as “half less than” the written digit and describes these forms as poorly attested. In 2007, a review recorded a rival Tibetan-art interpretation: the slash halves a whole measurement, perhaps a proportion in a thangka (a Tibetan Buddhist painting) or a note about a stupa (a Buddhist monument). The reviewer could not reproduce an example. Without a source showing that convention, use the standard 7½ reading.