U+11F3A "𑼺" Kawi Vowel Sign Vocalic R Unicode Character

U+11F3A "𑼺" Kawi Vowel Sign Vocalic R is a diacritical mark used in the Kawi script, a historical Brahmi-derived writing system employed across maritime Southeast Asia, particularly in Java, Bali, and Sumatra, from roughly the 8th to the 16th century. This specific vowel sign indicates a vocalic r sound, a syllabic consonant that functions as a vowel, often transcribed as a short or long ṛ in romanization. It is applied as a combining mark above or attached to a consonant character to modify its inherent vowel, representing a distinct phoneme found in Sanskrit and Old Javanese loanwords. The character is encoded in Unicode’s Kawi block, which was added in version 15.0 in 2022 to support digital preservation and study of this ancient script, helping scholars accurately represent texts from inscriptions and literary manuscripts.