Alphabet Letters
Brahmi Ha 𑀳
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
Ha is a voiced breath, made at the vocal folds rather than at any point in the mouth, which is why it stands at the end of a table ordered from the back of the tract forwards: there is nowhere further back to go. The Indian phoneticians classed it with the sounds they called breathed rather than with the stops or the sibilants. It is the thirty-third consonant of the Brahmi order and, in the arrangement Sanskrit inherited, the last letter of the alphabet proper, before anything the script added for sounds of its own. In the scripts descended from Brahmi it keeps that final position, and where an alphabet adds letters of its own, as several did, they are placed after it rather than among the letters received.
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 aspirate; thirty-third consonant of the Brahmi order 3Tradition: Modern scholarly naming of the Brahmi letters 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 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 PositionThirty-third consonant of the Brahmi order and the last letter of the inherited alphabet before the retroflex lateral 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 SoundA voiced breath, made at the vocal folds rather than at any point in the mouth, which is why it closes a table ordered from the back of the tract forwards 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Transmission
Manuscript TraditionAttested from the Asokan rock and pillar edicts of the third century BCE, the earliest substantial Brahmi corpus. 2 Learn More
The Last Letter of the Received Order
The aspirate closes the inherited consonant order, and its position is an argument rather than an accident. The consonants are arranged from the back of the vocal tract forwards, and this sound is made at the vocal folds, which is further back than any point in the mouth, so on the organising principle it should come first. The tradition put it last instead, on the reasoning that it belongs with the sounds of audible friction rather than with the stops, and that the friction group follows the classed consonants. The two principles collide here and the tradition chose one and said so.
In the language the letter opens a family of common roots, among them the ones meaning to strike, to take away and to laugh, and it stands in a range of ordinary vocabulary besides. Historically a good many of its occurrences descend from older voiced aspirates that lost their stop closure, so a Sanskrit word with this letter often corresponds to a word with a voiced aspirate in the related languages.
Its behaviour in junction is irregular by the standards of the rest of the alphabet, and the grammatical tradition treats it as a special case in several rules. That is what one would expect of a sound made at the vocal folds rather than at a point of articulation in the mouth, since most of the rules are stated in terms of where sounds are made.
What Comes After the End
Because this letter closes the received order, everything an alphabet adds is placed after it, and what a given script has in that position is a compact statement of which languages it was made to serve. Brahmi itself puts the retroflex lateral there, a sound classical Sanskrit does not treat as separate but Vedic recitation keeps and several Middle Indo-Aryan dialects use. Tamil-Brahmi puts three further consonants after that, for Dravidian sounds no Indo-Aryan text needs. Several traditions add the cluster of the retroflex sibilant with the velar stop, recited as though it were a letter.
The convention of adding at the end rather than inserting in place is not a matter of tidiness. The order was a memorised sequence recited whole, and inserting a letter in the middle would have obliged every reciter to relearn the list, whereas an addition at the end leaves the sequence intact and adds one item. The same instinct produced the dotted letters of the later northern scripts, which file a new sound under the existing letter it resembles rather than claiming a position of its own.
So the tail of an Indic alphabet is where its history is written. The letters before the aspirate are inherited; the letters after it are what a particular script and a particular language needed and went and got.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Derived from This
Devanagari Ha 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.
The Gurmukhi letter Haha continues the sign Brahmi Ha 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.
Ranjana Ha continues the sign Brahmi Ha 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 ha continues the Brahmi ha, 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
Both belong to the ushman. The dental sibilant is the commonest of the group and the aspirate is the last letter of the inherited order.
Both belong to the ushman, the sounds of audible friction that close the consonant order after the semivowels. Sa is the commonest of the three sibilants, and Ha is the last letter of the inherited order.
Both belong to the group the phoneticians call ushman, the sounds made with audible friction rather than a full closure of the tract.
Both belong to the ushman, the sounds of audible friction that close the consonant order after the semivowels.
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