Alphabet Letters
Brahmi A 𑀅
Brahmi Letters
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Origin Mature Brahmi is securely attested in the edicts of Ashoka in the middle of the third century BCE, and the script could be read again only after James Prinsep worked out its values in 1837
A is the first letter of the Brahmi order and the first sound of the languages the script was made to write, a short vowel that every consonant sign already carries inside it. The sign for ka is read ka and not k, because the inherent a is present unless a vowel mark replaces it or the virama cancels it, which makes A less one letter among the others than the ground the others stand on. As an independent letter it is written only where a word begins with the vowel; inside a word the inherent a needs no sign at all. The Indian phoneticians put it at the head of the table because it is formed in the throat with the mouth at rest, the least shaped sound there is, and every script descended from Brahmi keeps it in that place.
Facts
Disputed
Origin PeriodMany epigraphists derive Brahmi from a Semitic prototype, most often Aramaic, adapted in the centuries before the Mauryan empire 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Brahmi's ancestry is disputed among epigraphists. Richard Salomon's Indian Epigraphy (Oxford University Press, 1998) surveys two live positions on the origin of the script attested in the Ashokan inscriptions: one derives Brahmi from a Semitic prototype, most often Aramaic, adapted in the centuries before the Mauryan empire; the other holds that it developed inside India itself. The dispute turns on the corpus, since Brahmi is securely attested only from Ashoka's edicts in the middle of the third century BCE onward, first read again by James Prinsep in 1837, and no earlier specimen on either side is securely dated. Both camps compare Brahmi's letterforms against Aramaic and other Semitic scripts using the same paleographic method, and without an intermediate dated example bridging the gap between any proposed ancestor and the Mauryan era script, neither derivation has been shown to fit the evidence better than the other. Origin PeriodOthers argue for a development inside India, and with no securely dated specimen earlier than the edicts the question stays open 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Brahmi's ancestry is disputed among epigraphists. Richard Salomon's Indian Epigraphy (Oxford University Press, 1998) surveys two live positions on the origin of the script attested in the Ashokan inscriptions: one derives Brahmi from a Semitic prototype, most often Aramaic, adapted in the centuries before the Mauryan empire; the other holds that it developed inside India itself. The dispute turns on the corpus, since Brahmi is securely attested only from Ashoka's edicts in the middle of the third century BCE onward, first read again by James Prinsep in 1837, and no earlier specimen on either side is securely dated. Both camps compare Brahmi's letterforms against Aramaic and other Semitic scripts using the same paleographic method, and without an intermediate dated example bridging the gap between any proposed ancestor and the Mauryan era script, neither derivation has been shown to fit the evidence better than the other. Origins
Origin PeriodMature Brahmi is securely attested in the edicts of Ashoka in the middle of the third century BCE, and the script could be read again only after James Prinsep worked out its values in 1837 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Place of OriginThe Indian subcontinent. The Ashokan edicts carry the script from the Gangetic plain across the Deccan to the far south, while the northwest of the same empire wrote in Kharosthi instead 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Origin of the NameThe letter has no traditional name of its own. It is called by the vowel it writes, and the form used here is the name the Unicode Standard gives the character 3Tradition: Modern scholarly naming of the Brahmi letters Sense of the Namethe short a vowel, inherent in every consonant sign; first letter of the Brahmi order 3Tradition: Modern scholarly naming of the Brahmi letters Transmission
Manuscript TraditionAttested from the Asokan rock and pillar edicts of the third century BCE, the earliest substantial Brahmi corpus. 2 Identity
Script TypeAn abugida: every consonant sign carries an inherent short a, which a vowel mark alters and the virama cancels, so the unit written is the syllable rather than the single sound 1Tradition: Comparative writing systems PositionFirst letter of the Brahmi order and first of the fourteen vowels 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy How the Letter JoinsAs an independent letter it takes no attachment. After a consonant the short a is written with nothing at all, because every consonant sign already carries it 1Tradition: Comparative writing systems Attributions
Associated SoundShort a, formed in the throat with the tract at rest, and inherent in every consonant sign unless a vowel mark replaces it or the virama cancels it 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceThe letter belongs to the received Brahmi order, and the corresponding sign in the scripts descended from Brahmi across South and Southeast Asia goes back to it 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Learn More
A and the Rules That Join Words
The short a is the sound the Sanskrit rules of junction are built around, because it is the vowel most often standing at the seam where two words meet. When a word ending in a meets a word beginning in a, the two combine into a single long vowel and the seam disappears. When a meets i the result is neither a nor i but e, and when a meets u the result is o, which is why the grammarians class e and o as compound vowels rather than simple ones and place them after the a, i and u series in the order rather than among them. Those three rules alone rewrite the surface of a Sanskrit sentence, and the writing follows the pronunciation rather than the underlying words, so a reader has to undo the junction to find where one word ends and the next begins.
The letter also carries the language's commonest prefix. Placed at the head of a stem, a negates it: the word for non-injury is the same word as injury with this vowel in front, and the terms for the endless, the unborn and the unmanifest are formed the same way. Before a vowel the prefix takes a nasal and becomes an, which is the same alternation English inherited independently in a and an. Because that prefix begins a word, it is one of the few places where the independent letter has to be written at all rather than sitting unmarked inside a consonant sign, so a Brahmi inscription shows this vowel in its full form far more often at the start of a negated word than anywhere else.
The Vowel That Is Not Written
An abugida spends fewer marks than the sounds it records, and the short a is where the saving is made. A consonant sign is read with this vowel already attached, so a word of three open syllables ending in a can be written with three signs and nothing else. The unit that results is the akshara, the consonant with whatever vowel it carries, and it is the unit Indian tradition counts, recites and uses to measure verse. It is not the letter of an alphabet and it is not quite the syllable of modern phonetics, and the difference is exactly what makes Brahmi and its descendants a family of their own rather than a variant of the alphabets of western Asia.
The independent sign for this vowel therefore has a narrow job. It is written where a word opens with the vowel and nowhere else, so on a page of Brahmi it is uncommon beside the consonant signs. Everything else about the vowel is carried by absence: no mark on a consonant means the inherent a is present, and a mark means it has been replaced. That convention is inherited unchanged by every script descended from Brahmi across South and Southeast Asia, which is why a reader who has learned the principle in one of them can follow it in the rest without learning it again. When a later script wanted to cancel the inherent vowel outright it had to invent a sign for the cancellation, because the script gave it no other way to say that nothing was there.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Derived from This
The Gurmukhi letter Aira continues the sign Brahmi A writes in the same place of the inherited series. The descent is not direct: it runs through the Sharada script of the northwest and then the Landa hands of the Punjab, and it is stated from position in the order rather than from shape.
Devanagari A descends from the Brahmi sign of the same value, through the Gupta and Nagari hands of northern India. The two alphabets align letter for letter because both are laid out in the varnamala order, the arrangement the Sanskrit phoneticians fixed by place of articulation.
Ranjana A continues the sign Brahmi A writes in the same place of the inherited varnamala. The descent is not direct: it runs through the Gupta and Siddhamatrka stages of the northern Brahmi line and then the scripts of Nepal, and it is stated from position in the order rather than from shape.
Siddham continues the Brahmi order letter for letter. The descent runs through the late Brahmi of the Gupta period and the Siddhamatrka hand that grows out of it, so this is a lineage rather than a direct copy of the older shape.
Tibetan a continues the Brahmi a, keeping its value and its place in the inherited order. The descent of the Tibetan script from the Brahmi family is not disputed; which Indic script of that family served as the immediate model in the seventh century is, and this link names the ancestor the atlas holds rather than choosing among the candidates.
Related To
Quantity partners. The two vowels share a throat position and differ only in whether the sound is held for one mora or for two, and the Brahmi order sets them side by side for that reason.
Quantity partners. The two vowels share a throat position and differ only in whether the sound is held for one mora or for two; Aa is the long counterpart of A.
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