Lingoflyް — sukun
«sukun» is a sign of the Maldivian script. No vowel at all: ބް is just “b”. The Maldivian alphabet has 24 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. This character does not count as a letter of the alphabet. The little circle above means “no sound here”. Every word that ends on a consonant ends with it: ބަސް (bas) is bas, not basa. On a carrier the character looks like this: ބް. It appears, for example, in the word “ސަލާމް” (salaam) — hello.
In short
| Character | ް |
| Name | sukun |
| Sound | sukun (no vowel) |
| What it is | a sign |
| On the carrier | ބް |
In our course the character comes 6th of 35: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are ަ and ާ, appears in roughly every other word on this site.
How to type ް
- On a phone: add the Dhivehi keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- In Word on Windows: type U+07B0 and press Alt+X right after it — the code turns into the character.
- On a Mac: switch to the Unicode Hex Input source, hold Option and type 07B0.
- Type this sign after its base letter, even where it is drawn before it: letter first, then the sign, and they join.
- Unicode code point: U+07B0. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
No vowel at all: ބް is just “b”
The character in the “sukun” group
The eleventh sign in the fili row, and the only one that means the absence of a vowel.
Words with this character
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound, see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 24 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Maldivian character ް read?
Sukun (no vowel). It is a sign of the Maldivian script. No vowel at all: ބް is just “b”.
What is the sign ް called?
Sukun is what this character is called when the alphabet is recited aloud.