𐳭

ű

a sound, not a word

A letter Unicode does not actually have

Glyphs are shown in Unicode and laid out left to right. Both scripts are written right to left, so these rows are a convenience rather than a facsimile.

Sound
ű /yː/
Position
14
Group
Vowels
Unicode
U+10CED

The gap in the standard

Ű is the long ü, and it is the one letter in the modern Rovás alphabet with no dedicated character in Unicode.

The Old Hungarian block has U+10CEA U, U+10CEB UU for the long u, and then two variants of ü: U+10CEC Nikolsburg UE and U+10CED Rudimenta UE, named for the two historical sources that record them. There is no UEE to parallel the OEE that serves ő.

So modern usage presses the Rudimenta variant into service as ű. A scribal variant of one letter is doing duty as a different letter, by convention rather than by encoding.

Why the gap exists

Because the historical script did not distinguish vowel length at all.

Historical Rovás had no long vowels as separate letters. The seven long vowels in the modern alphabet — á, é, í, ó, ő, ú, ű — are a revival construction, assembled by assigning scribal variants and close-vowel forms to lengths the original never marked. Unicode encoded what the manuscripts contain, and the manuscripts contain variants, not lengths.

Where a variant happened to exist, the revival had something to use. Where one did not, as here, it improvised. The asymmetry between ő and ű is that improvisation showing through.

Frequently asked questions

No. The Old Hungarian block has U and UU, and two variants of ü — Nikolsburg UE and Rudimenta UE — but no UEE to parallel the OEE that serves ő. Modern usage presses the Rudimenta variant into service as ű by convention.

Because the historical script did not mark vowel length. The seven long vowels in the modern alphabet are a revival construction built by assigning scribal variants and close-vowel forms to lengths the original never distinguished. Unicode encoded what the manuscripts contain, which is variants rather than lengths.

No. Rovás letters are purely phonetic. Their names — eb, ec, ed and so on — are recitation aids, the consonant with a leading vowel, not words. There is no rune poem, no kenning tradition and no ideographic layer, which puts the script in a weaker position for divination than the Germanic runes.

Rovás

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