U+0710 "ܐ" Syriac Letter Alaph Unicode Character

Unicode Version 17.0

ܐ

U+0710 "ܐ" Syriac Letter Alaph is the first letter of the Syriac alphabet, representing the glottal stop sound in its consonantal form and often serving as a mater lectionis to indicate a long vowel when carrying certain diacritical marks. It is used in the three major Syriac scripts, Estrangela, Serto, and East Syriac, to write a significant corpus of Christian liturgical and theological texts. This character is distinct from other Semitic alphabetic equivalents like the Hebrew Aleph or Arabic Alif, though it shares a common historical origin in the Proto-Sinaitic script. Its shape in its isolated form resembles a rounded loop with a tail descending to the right, and it is a foundational element of the Syriac writing system, which developed from the Aramaic script around the first century AD.

General Properties

Code Point U+0710
Version Added 3.0
Name Syriac Letter Alaph
Block Syriac
General Category Other Letter
Canonical Combining Class Not Reordered
Bidirectional Class Arabic Letter

Encodings

HTML Decimal Encoding ܐ
HTML Hex Encoding ܐ
UTF-8 Encoding 0xDC 0x90
UTF-16 Encoding 0x0710
UTF-32 Encoding 0x00000710
C/C++/Java Escape \u0710

Unicode Properties

NFC Quick Check Yes
NFD Quick Check Yes
NFKC Quick Check Yes
NFKD Quick Check Yes
Numeric Type None
Numeric Value NaN
Joining Type Right Joining
Joining Group Alaph
Line Break Alphabetic
Script Syriac
Script Extensions Syriac
Indic Syllabic Category Other
ID Start Yes
XID Start Yes
ID Continue Yes
XID Continue Yes
Alphabetic Yes
Vertical Orientation Rotated
Grapheme Base Yes
Grapheme Cluster Break Other
Word Break Alphabetic letter
Sentence Break OLetter