U+17DD "៝" Khmer Sign Atthacan Unicode Character

Unicode Version 17.0

U+17DD "៝" Khmer Sign Atthacan is a diacritical mark used in the Khmer script to indicate that a consonant is to be pronounced without its inherent vowel, effectively creating a short, suppressed vowel sound not unlike a subtle break or glottal stop in the context of certain transliterations. It is historically significant in the writing system of the Khmer language, particularly in the representation of Pali and Sanskrit loanwords, where it helps to preserve accurate phonetic distinctions that standard subscript consonant stacking cannot convey. Visually, this sign appears as a small, upward pointing curve or hook attached above the consonant, distinguishing it from other vowel-killing marks in the script and ensuring proper pronunciation in scholarly and liturgical texts.

General Properties

Code Point U+17DD
Version Added 4.0
Name Khmer Sign Atthacan
Block Khmer
General Category Nonspacing Mark
Canonical Combining Class Above
Bidirectional Class Nonspacing Mark

Encodings

HTML Decimal Encoding ៝
HTML Hex Encoding ៝
UTF-8 Encoding 0xE1 0x9F 0x9D
UTF-16 Encoding 0x17DD
UTF-32 Encoding 0x000017DD
C/C++/Java Escape \u17dd

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 Transparent
Line Break Complex Context Dependent (South East Asian)
Case Ignorable Yes
Script Khmer
Script Extensions Khmer
Indic Syllabic Category Syllable Modifier
Indic Positional Category Top
Indic Conjunct Break Extend
ID Continue Yes
XID Continue Yes
Diacritic Yes
Vertical Orientation Rotated
Grapheme Extend Yes
Grapheme Cluster Break Extend
Word Break Extend
Sentence Break Extend