U+09CC "ৌ" Bengali Vowel Sign Au Unicode Character

U+09CC "ৌ" Bengali Vowel Sign Au is a combining diacritical mark used in the Bengali script to represent the vowel sound commonly romanized as "au" or "ou". This sign appears as a visual glyph attached to the top and right side of a consonant letter, modifying its inherent vowel sound to produce the diphthong /ou/ in standard Bengali pronunciation. It is distinct from independent vowel characters like "ঔ" (U+0994) because it must combine with a base consonant to form a full syllable, eliminating the vowel inherent in the consonant. This character is encoded in the Bengali block of the Unicode Standard, primarily supporting the Bengali language as spoken in Bangladesh and parts of India, and it functions similarly to other vowel signs in the script by altering the phonetic output of a written word.