O: The Ranjana Letter

O is the thirteenth letter of the Ranjana varnamala and the third of the compound vowels. Its structure mirrors that of e exactly: where e is analysed as the product of a and a vowel of the palatal group, o is the product of a and a vowel of the labial group, and the two therefore stand in the same relation to their simple partners. In speech it is a single long vowel made with the back of the tongue raised and the lips rounded, always long, with no short counterpart in the classical language. Its mark is written above the head stroke, alongside those for e and ai, and the independent letter shown here is used where the vowel opens a word or follows another vowel. Of the four compound vowels o is the one a reader is likely to meet first in the material Ranjana chiefly carries, because it opens the syllable om, which begins a great many Sanskrit invocations and is the first syllable of the six syllable mantra that the script is most often used to write on prayer wheels and on carved stone.

The letter's derivation from a and a labial vowel also explains a feature of the writing that puzzles beginners. Because o is analysed as a compound, some traditions of teaching present its mark as built from two parts rather than as a single stroke, and the shape in several Brahmic scripts does read that way. Ranjana's own mark sits above the head stroke as a unit, but the analysis behind it is the same one that governs every script of the family.