U+10480 "𐒀" Osmanya Letter Alef Unicode Character
Unicode Version 17.0
𐒀
U+10480 "𐒀" Osmanya Letter Alef is the first letter of the Osmanya script, an alphabet created in the early 20th century by Osman Yusuf Kenadid to write the Somali language. This character represents the glottal stop sound, analogous to the Arabic letter alef, and was part of an effort to provide a native writing system for Somalia, though it was eventually overshadowed by the Latin script for official use. The Osmanya block was added to the Unicode Standard in version 4.0, released in 2003, to preserve this historical script for digital communication and cultural heritage.
General Properties
| Code Point | U+10480 |
| Version Added | 4.0 |
| Name | Osmanya Letter Alef |
| Block | Osmanya |
| General Category | Other Letter |
| Canonical Combining Class | Not Reordered |
| Bidirectional Class | Left To Right |
Encodings
| HTML Decimal Encoding | 𐒀 |
| HTML Hex Encoding | 𐒀 |
| UTF-8 Encoding | 0xF0 0x90 0x92 0x80 |
| UTF-16 Encoding | 0xD801 0xDC80 |
| UTF-32 Encoding | 0x00010480 |
| C/C++/Java Escape | \ud801\udc80 |