Vietnamese Ca Mark

It can cue a Vietnamese reading for the character it follows.

Chữ Nôm is the historic Vietnamese writing system, built from Chinese characters borrowed to write Vietnamese and characters created in Vietnam. A borrowed Chinese character has a familiar Sino-Vietnamese reading—the Vietnamese reading associated with that character—but cá can mark a different Vietnamese word or reading. Use the whole word to resolve it; 𖿰 does not supply a syllable of its own.

Did cá always have the same job?

No; it also helped build and distinguish characters.

Cá takes its source form from the Chinese character 个. In some Chữ Nôm forms, it serves inside a character as a sound component; as a separate added mark, it can cue a different reading. Its effect is not always a sound change: examples also use cá to change a word’s meaning while keeping its reading, or simply to make a visually distinct character. The surrounding word resolves which job it has.

A woodblock edition of Gia lễ uses the side mark by 1707. Historical examples place cá in printed books and stone inscriptions through about the mid-19th century; nháy appears more often in later printed works and manuscripts.

Why does 𖿰 follow another character?

It is a combining mark attached to a base character.

In typed text, 𖿰 follows the Chinese character it modifies; a font with combining-mark support positions it beside that character. It usually sits on the right, though some forms are integrated more closely into the character’s shape. Font positioning affects exactly where it sits, but not which character it modifies.