Alphabet Letters
Brahmi Dda 𑀟
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
Dda is the voiced unaspirated retroflex stop, the third member of the retroflex class. Between vowels in many Middle Indo-Aryan dialects the sound weakened towards a flap, and several of the scripts descended from Brahmi later marked that flap with a dot added beneath this letter. The Brahmi inscriptions themselves make no such mark, so a reader has to take the value from the language rather than from the sign. That is one of the ordinary difficulties of reading the earliest Indic epigraphy, where the script records rather less than a modern reader would like it to. The dotted letters of the later scripts are a solution to a problem Brahmi left to the reader, and they are one of the ways a descendant script can end up more explicit than its ancestor.
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 its own sound plus the inherent short a, 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 voiced unaspirated retroflex; thirteenth consonant 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 PositionThirteenth consonant of the Brahmi order and third member of the retroflex class 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy How the Letter JoinsConsonants that meet with no vowel between them are written as a conjunct, the second stacked beneath or ligatured to the first, rather than as two separate signs 1Tradition: Comparative writing systems Attributions
Associated SoundVoiced unaspirated retroflex stop; between vowels in many Middle Indo-Aryan dialects the sound weakened towards a retroflex flap 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 Sound the Script Does Not Distinguish
Between vowels in many Middle Indo-Aryan dialects the voiced retroflex stop weakened towards a flap, a sound made by the tongue striking the roof of the mouth in passing rather than closing against it. Brahmi has one letter and writes both, so a reader has to take the value from the language rather than from the sign. That is an ordinary difficulty of the earliest Indic epigraphy, and it is one of several places where the script records less than a modern reader would like.
Vedic recitation makes a related substitution and preserves it in writing. In the received text of the Rigveda an intervocalic occurrence of this stop is read and written as the retroflex lateral instead, the letter that stands last in the Brahmi consonant order, and the substitution is described in the classical grammars. Classical Sanskrit does not make it. So the same underlying sound appears under two different letters depending on which stage and which register of the language is being written, which is a reminder that an alphabet records a tradition of pronunciation and not a set of abstract sounds. Several of the descendant scripts eventually resolved the flap problem by adding a subscript dot to this letter, a distinction Brahmi never had.
When the Child Script Is Clearer Than the Parent
A writing system does not necessarily become less explicit as it ages, and this letter is the standing example of the opposite. Brahmi left the flap to the reader; the northern descendants added a dot beneath the letter and said it outright. The same scripts added an explicit vowel canceller, worked out standard forms for clusters that Brahmi wrote ad hoc, and eventually settled the length of vowels that early inscriptions leave ambiguous on a worn surface. On several measures a modern Indic alphabet tells a reader more than its ancestor did.
That cuts against a common assumption about early writing, which is that scripts start out precise and decay. What actually happens is that a script records what its users need it to record, and the requirements change. Brahmi was developed for a language whose readers knew it, cut by masons on stone for an audience who could supply what was missing. A manuscript tradition copying texts in a language nobody spoke any longer has different needs, and the additional marks appear as those needs appear. The dotted letters of the later scripts are solutions to problems that Brahmi did not have rather than corrections of Brahmi's mistakes.
The dot itself is worth a note. Subscript and superscript dots are the general Indic device for saying that a letter is not quite the letter it looks like, and they are used for at least three unrelated jobs across the family: marking a flap, marking a borrowed Persian or Arabic sound, and in Tamil marking the absence of the inherent vowel. Nothing connects those uses except the convenience of a mark that can be added to any sign without disturbing the order of the alphabet.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Derived from This
The Gurmukhi letter Ḍadda continues the sign Brahmi Dda 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 Dda 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 Dda continues the sign Brahmi Dda 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.
Related To
Aspiration partners in the retroflex class. Both are voiced, and the second is released with the breathy voice that Sanskrit kept where most of its relatives lost it.
The stop this letter stands for in Vedic recitation. In the received text of the Rigveda an intervocalic retroflex stop is read and written as this lateral, a substitution the classical language does not make.
The nasal of the retroflex class. Both are voiced and both are made with the tip of the tongue curled back against the roof of the mouth, the nasal differing in that the closure is released through the nose.
Voicing partners in the retroflex class. Both are unaspirated stops made with the tip of the tongue curled back against the roof of the mouth, and the vocal folds vibrate through the closure of the second.
Opposite corners of the retroflex class, the third of the five groups of five. Between them the two carry one feature each from the pair the table is built on.
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