Va: The Ranjana Letter

Va is the twenty ninth consonant of the Ranjana varnamala and the last of the four semivowels, made at the lips and paired in the analysis with the vowel u. Its exact value in Sanskrit lies between the v and the w of English and is described differently in different regional traditions, which is one of the places where the classical description and later pronunciation diverge. The chart records the position rather than any one region's reading of it, which is why the letter can be used across a wide range of languages without the chart needing revision. In Ranjana it is written as any consonant, with the inherent short a and the head stroke, and it takes its vowel marks in the four positions.

With Va the semivowels are complete, and the chart turns to the three sibilants, which are of a different kind again: continuous sounds made with friction at a narrow point, none of which fits either the grid of stops or the group of semivowels. The pairing with u is also why the letter's reduced form beneath another consonant is common in Sanskrit, since clusters of a stop with a following labial semivowel occur frequently. A reader meets the joined shape early, as with ra and la, and the three together account for most of what a learner has to know about the lower half of a Ranjana syllable.