U+02B8 "ʸ" Modifier Letter Small Y Unicode Character

U+02B8 "ʸ" Modifier Letter Small Y is a superscript form of the lowercase letter Y, classified as a spacing modifier letter used primarily in phonetic transcription. It represents a secondary articulation or a palatalized sound, often indicating that a preceding consonant is produced with the tongue raised toward the hard palate, similar to the y sound in English "yes." This character appears in the International Phonetic Alphabet extension and in some orthographies to modify the pronunciation of adjacent letters without functioning as an independent vowel or consonant. Its small, raised form allows it to attach tightly to base characters, enabling precise notation of coarticulated speech sounds.

General Properties

Code Point	U+02B8
Version Added	1.1
Name	Modifier Letter Small Y
Block	Spacing Modifier Letters
General Category	Modifier Letter
Canonical Combining Class	Not Reordered
Bidirectional Class	Left To Right
Decomposition Type	Super
Decomposition Mapping	"y" U+0079 Latin Small Letter Y

Encodings

HTML Decimal Encoding	ʸ
HTML Hex Encoding	ʸ
UTF-8 Encoding	0xCA 0xB8
UTF-16 Encoding	0x02B8
UTF-32 Encoding	0x000002B8
C/C++/Java Escape	\u02b8

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	"y" U+0079 Latin Small Letter Y
NFKC Simple Casefold	"y" U+0079 Latin Small Letter Y
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