U+11398 "𑎘" Tulu-Tigalari Letter Cha Unicode Character

U+11398 "𑎘" Tulu-Tigalari Letter Cha is a character from the Tulu-Tigalari script, an abugida historically used to write the Tulu language in the southwestern region of India, particularly in and around the state of Karnataka. This specific letter represents the sound "cha," which is a voiceless palatal affricate consonant, akin to the "ch" sound in the English word "church." The script belongs to the Brahmic family of writing systems and is closely related to other southern Brahmic scripts like Grantha and Malayalam, though Tulu-Tigalari has its own distinct letter shapes and orthographic traditions. The addition of this character to the Unicode Standard, starting from version 16.0, was an important step in the digital preservation and representation of the Tulu language and its cultural heritage.