U+02B7 "ʷ" Modifier Letter Small W Unicode Character
Unicode Version 17.0
ʷ
U+02B7 "ʷ" Modifier Letter Small W is a superscript or raised version of the lowercase letter w, classified as a combining diacritical mark in the Spacing Modifier Letters block. It is primarily used in linguistic transcriptions, particularly in phonetics and phonology, to indicate labialization, a secondary articulation where sounds are produced with rounded or protruded lips, as seen in the International Phonetic Alphabet to modify consonants like kʷ or ɡʷ. This character also appears in some orthographies for minority languages and in transcriptions of ancient or reconstructed languages to denote a w-like offglide or coarticulation.
General Properties
| Code Point | U+02B7 |
| Version Added | 1.1 |
| Name | Modifier Letter Small W |
| Block | Spacing Modifier Letters |
| General Category | Modifier Letter |
| Canonical Combining Class | Not Reordered |
| Bidirectional Class | Left To Right |
| Decomposition Type | Super |
| Decomposition Mapping | "w" U+0077 Latin Small Letter W |
Encodings
| HTML Decimal Encoding | ʷ |
| HTML Hex Encoding | ʷ |
| UTF-8 Encoding | 0xCA 0xB7 |
| UTF-16 Encoding | 0x02B7 |
| UTF-32 Encoding | 0x000002B7 |
| C/C++/Java Escape | \u02b7 |
Unicode Properties
| NFC Quick Check | Yes |
| NFD Quick Check | Yes |
| Numeric Type | None |
| Numeric Value | NaN |
| Line Break | Alphabetic |
| Lowercase | Yes |
| Other Lowercase | Yes |
| Case Ignorable | Yes |
| Cased | Yes |
| Changes When NFKC Casefolded | Yes |
| NFKC Casefold | "w" U+0077 Latin Small Letter W |
| NFKC Simple Casefold | "w" U+0077 Latin Small Letter W |
| Script | Latin |
| Script Extensions | Latin |
| Indic Syllabic Category | Other |
| ID Start | Yes |
| XID Start | Yes |
| ID Continue | Yes |
| XID Continue | Yes |
| Diacritic | Yes |
| Alphabetic | Yes |
| Vertical Orientation | Rotated |
| Grapheme Base | Yes |
| Grapheme Cluster Break | Other |
| Word Break | Alphabetic letter |
| Sentence Break | Lower |