U+0BBF "ி" Tamil Vowel Sign I Unicode Character
Unicode Version 17.0
ி
U+0BBF "ி" Tamil Vowel Sign I is a combining diacritical mark used in the Tamil script, representing the short vowel sound 'i' (as in "pin") when attached to a consonant. It is positioned to the left of the base consonant character, unlike many other vowel signs that appear to the right or above, making it a notable visual feature of Tamil orthography. This sign transforms a consonant letter, such as க் (k), into கி (ki), and is essential for accurately writing and reading words in the Tamil language, where vowels modify the inherent 'a' sound of consonants through specific coded characters within the Unicode standard.
General Properties
| Code Point | U+0BBF |
| Version Added | 1.1 |
| Name | Tamil Vowel Sign I |
| Block | Tamil |
| General Category | Spacing Mark |
| Canonical Combining Class | Not Reordered |
| Bidirectional Class | Left To Right |
Encodings
| HTML Decimal Encoding | ி |
| HTML Hex Encoding | ி |
| UTF-8 Encoding | 0xE0 0xAE 0xBF |
| UTF-16 Encoding | 0x0BBF |
| UTF-32 Encoding | 0x00000BBF |
| C/C++/Java Escape | \u0bbf |