Alphabet Letters
Brahmi U 𑀉
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
U is the short labial vowel, made with the lips rounded and the back of the tongue raised, and it stands fifth in the Brahmi order. Its vowel mark is written below the consonant sign rather than beside it, one of the few places where an Indic script uses the space under the line of writing. As an independent letter it appears only where a word begins with the vowel. Like i, it has a consonantal counterpart among the semivowels, the va of the same order, and the grammarians describe the two as one sound in two roles, the vowel becoming the semivowel whenever another vowel follows it directly. The two u vowels and the labial class of stops are grouped together by the phoneticians as sounds of the lips, a family the vowel table and the consonant table share between them.
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 u vowel; fifth 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 PositionFifth letter of the Brahmi order and fifth of the vowels 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy How the Letter JoinsAn independent vowel letter takes no attachment. After a consonant the same vowel is written not with this letter but as a mark added to the consonant sign 1Tradition: Comparative writing systems Attributions
Associated SoundShort u, labial, formed with the lips rounded and the back of the tongue raised; its vowel mark is written below the consonant sign 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
U in Junction and in Derivation
The short labial vowel behaves in the rules of junction exactly as i does in its own series. Before a dissimilar vowel it becomes the semivowel va, so a word ending in u and a word beginning in a run together with the vowel rewritten as a consonant, and the seam is invisible until the reader undoes it. Raised one grade it becomes o and raised a second it becomes au, and a family of Sanskrit words are the same root taken at different points on that ladder.
The vowel is also the ending of an important class of nominal stems and the vowel of a set of common suffixes, so it is met constantly in ordinary vocabulary. In the Prakrit of the Ashokan edicts it is common as well, and it is one of the vowels that the older syllabic r fell together with in some dialects, so a Prakrit word may show u where the Sanskrit cognate shows the syllabic liquid. That kind of correspondence is one of the tools by which the dialect of a given edict is identified, since the Mauryan inscriptions were cut in several different Middle Indo-Aryan dialects across the empire and the vowel treatments differ from one to another. A reader working from Sanskrit therefore has to read a Brahmi inscription with the language in mind rather than simply transliterating it.
The Band Below the Line
Most Indic vowel marks are written above the consonant sign or beside it. The two u vowels are the standing exception, and their marks hang beneath the letter, in a band of the writing space that the script otherwise uses only for conjuncts. That single decision has consequences that run through the whole family: a script that already writes something under the line has somewhere to put a subscript consonant, a nasalisation mark or a vowel canceller, and the scripts descended from Brahmi make heavy use of the room.
The independent letter is a separate matter and appears only where a word opens with the vowel. Words beginning with u are common enough in Sanskrit that the sign is well attested, and it is one of the vowels for which the earliest inscriptions supply plenty of examples. What the inscriptions do not supply is a consistent shape: the vowel mark is small, it is cut in a position where the stone is often damaged, and the difference between the short and the long form is a matter of a single added turn. Reading it correctly on a worn surface is one of the ordinary difficulties of the epigraphy, and it is a place where editions of the same inscription can differ from one another.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Derived from This
Devanagari U 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 U continues the sign Brahmi U 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 zhabs kyu continues the Brahmi u, 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.
The Gurmukhi letter Ura continues the sign Brahmi U writes, through the Sharada script of the northwest and the Landa hands of the Punjab. The parent wrote an independent vowel letter here; Gurmukhi reduced it to a silent bearer that holds a vowel sign, which is a departure of its own.
Related To
Second strengthening grade. Vrddhi raises u past o to au, completing the back series in the same two steps the front series takes.
First strengthening grade. O stands to u exactly as e stands to i, and the parallel between the front and back series is one of the things the vowel order is arranged to show.
Quantity partners. Both are made with the lips rounded, and the longer of the two is held for two morae rather than one.
Quantity partners. Both are made with the lips rounded; Uu is the long counterpart of U.
The vowel this semivowel answers to. A u turns into va before a dissimilar vowel, the back-series counterpart of the rule that turns i into ya.
Zhabs kyu, the vowel sign for u, answers to Brahmi U, the independent vowel letter for the same sound in the ancestor script.
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