U+01E9 "ǩ" Latin Small Letter K with Caron Unicode Character

U+01E9 "ǩ" Latin Small Letter K with Caron is a specialized alphabetic symbol used primarily in the Gwich'in language, an Indigenous language of northwestern Canada and Alaska, where it represents a distinct speech sound. It is also present in other languages and romanization systems, such as for writing certain Cyrillic-based languages, to indicate a specific consonant pronunciation. The caron, or háček, diacritic above the letter k signals a modification of the standard k sound, often resembling a palatalized or fronted articulation. This character enables accurate written representation of phonemes that would otherwise be ambiguous without the diacritical mark.