A is a vowel of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, A is derived from the early "

Ashoka Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, s ...

" Brahmi letter after having gone through the

Gupta Gupta () is a common surname or last name of Indian origin. It is based on the Sanskrit word गोप्तृ ''goptṛ'', which means 'guardian' or 'protector'. According to historian R. C. Majumdar, the surname ''Gupta'' was adopted by se ...

letter

. Bare consonants without a modifying vowel sign have the "A" vowel inherently, and thus there is no modifier sign for "A" in Indic scripts.

Āryabhaṭa numeration

Aryabhata Aryabhata ( ISO: ) or Aryabhata I (476–550 CE) was an Indian mathematician and astronomer of the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy. He flourished in the Gupta Era and produced works such as the ''Aryabhatiya'' (which ...

used Devanagari letters for numbers, very similar to the

Greek numerals Greek numerals, also known as Ionic, Ionian, Milesian, or Alexandrian numerals, are a system of writing numbers using the letters of the Greek alphabet. In modern Greece, they are still used for ordinal numbers and in contexts similar to tho ...

, even after the invention of

Indian numerals Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

. The letter अ was not used in the Aryabhata number system, and consonants with the inherent "a" vowel retained their base value.

Historic A

There are three different general early historic scripts -

Brahmi Brahmi (; ; ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system of ancient South Asia. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as 'lath' ...

and its variants,

Kharoṣṭhī The Kharoṣṭhī script, also spelled Kharoshthi (Kharosthi: ), was an ancient Indo-Iranian script used by various Aryan peoples in north-western regions of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely around present-day northern Pakistan and e ...

, and Tocharian, the so-called ''slanting Brahmi''. A as found in standard

, was a simple geometric shape, with variations toward more flowing forms by the Gupta . Like all Brahmic scripts, the Tocharian A is the inherent vowel for all consonant characters, apart from the alternate Fremdzeichen forms, which have the inherent vowel "Ä". In Kharoṣṭhī, the only independent vowel letter is for the inherent A, with all other independent vowels built from vowel marks added to A.

Brahmi A

The Brahmi letter , A, is probably derived from the Aramaic Alef Aleph

, and is thus related to the modern Latin A and Greek Alpha. Several identifiable styles of writing the Brahmi A can be found, most associated with a specific set of inscriptions from an artifact or diverse records from an historic period. Evolutionary chart, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Vol 7, 183

/ref> As the earliest and most geometric style of Brahmi, the letters found on the

Edicts of Ashoka The Edicts of Ashoka are a collection of more than thirty inscriptions on the Pillars of Ashoka, as well as boulders and cave walls, attributed to Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire who reigned from 268 BCE to 232 BCE. Ashoka used the exp ...

and other records from around that time are normally the reference form for Brahmi letters, with vowel marks not attested until later forms of Brahmi back-formed to match the geometric writing style.

Tocharian A

The Tocharian letter is derived from the Brahmi .

Kharoṣṭhī A

The Kharoṣṭhī letter A is the only independent vowel in Kharosthi. It is derived from the Aramaic Alef Aleph

, and is thus related to A and Alpha, as well as the Brahmi A.

Devanagari A

A (अ) is a vowel of the

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...

abugida An abugida (, from Ge'ez: ), sometimes known as alphasyllabary, neosyllabary or pseudo-alphabet, is a segmental writing system in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as units; each unit is based on a consonant letter, and vowel n ...

. It ultimately arose from the

letter , after having gone through the

letter

. Letters that derive from it are the

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub ...

letter અ, and the

Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...

letter 𑘀.

Devanagari Using Languages

The Devanagari script is used to write the

Hindi language Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

and the majority of

Indo-Aryan languages The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily ...

. In most of these languages, अ is pronounced as . Like all Indic scripts, Devanagari vowels come in two forms: an independent vowel form for syllables that begin with a vowel sound. However, since /ə/ is the inherent vowel of all consonants, there is no need for an A vowel sign.

Bengali A

A (অ) is a vowel of the

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

. It is derived from the Siddhaṃ letter , and is marked by a similar horizontal head line, but less geometric shape, than its Devanagari counterpart, अ.

Bengali Script Using Languages

The Bengali script is used to write several languages of eastern India, notably the

Bengali language Bengali ( ), generally known by its endonym Bangla (, ), is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Bengal region of South Asia. It is the official, national, and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh and the second most widely spoken o ...

and Assamese. In most languages, অ is pronounced as . Like all Indic scripts, Bengali vowels come in two forms: an independent vowel form for syllables that begin with a vowel sound. However, Bengali A represents the /ɔ/ vowel inherent in all consonants, and is thus indicated by the lack of any modifying vowel sign.

Gujarati A

A (અ) is a vowel of the

. It is derived from the Devanagari A , and ultimately the

letter .

Gujarati-using Languages

The Gujarati script is used to write the

and Kutchi languages. In both languages, અ is pronounced as . Like all Indic scripts, Gujarati vowels come in two forms: an independent vowel form for syllables that begin with a vowel sound. However, since A is the inherent vowel in unmarked consonants, there is no A vowel sign in Gujarati.

Javanese A

Telugu A

A (అ) is a vowel of the Telugu

. It ultimately arose from the

letter . It is closely related to the

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

letter ಅ. Like in other Indic scripts, "A" in Telugu is inherent in all consonants, and there is no vowel sign for the "A" vowel.

Malayalam A

A (അ) is a vowel of the

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 2 ...

. It ultimately arose from the

letter , via the Grantha letter ''a''. Like in other Indic scripts, "A" is the inherent vowel of Malayalam consonants, so there is no modifying vowel sign for A. As in most Indic scripts, independent Malayalam vowels do not decompose into A with a vowel sign attached, but rather are unique characters themselves. Independent vowel letters in Malayalam are used when a word begins with a vowel, rather than a consonant sound.

Odia A

A (ଅ) is a vowel of the Odia

. It ultimately arose from the

letter , via the Siddhaṃ letter ''a''. Like in other Indic scripts, Odia consonants inherently contain the "a" vowel, so there is no modifying sign for indicating that vowel.

Thai script

O ang (อ) and Ho nokhuk (ฮ) are the forty-third and forty-fourth letters of the

Thai script The Thai script ( th, อักษรไทย, ) is the abugida used to write Thai, Southern Thai and many other languages spoken in Thailand. The Thai alphabet itself (as used to write Thai) has 44 consonant symbols ( th, พยัญชน� ...

. Unlike many Indic scripts, Thai consonants do not form conjunct ligatures, and use the pinthu''—''an explicit virama with a dot shape—to indicate bare consonants.

O ang

In IPA, O ang is pronounced as �at the beginning of a syllable and not be used to close a syllable. It falls under the middle class of Thai consonants. In the acrophony of the Thai script, ang (อ่าง) means 'basin'. O ang corresponds to the Sanskrit character 'अ'.

Ho nokhuk

In IPA, Ho nokhuk is pronounced as at the beginning of a syllable and not be used to close a syllable. It falls under the low class of Thai consonants. In the acrophony of the Thai script, nokhuk (นกฮูก) means 'owl'.

Kaithi A

A (𑂃) is a vowel of the

Kaithi Kaithi (), also called Kayathi () or Kayasthi (), is a historical Brahmic script that was used widely in parts of Northern and Eastern India, primarily in the present-day states of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar. In particular, it was us ...

. It ultimately arose from the

letter , via the Siddhaṃ letter ''A''. Like in other Indic scripts, the Kaithi vowel A is an independent letter and lacks a vowel sign, as "a" is inherent to the consonant letters.

Comparison of A

The various Indic scripts are generally related to each other through adaptation and borrowing, and as such the glyphs for cognate letters, including A, are related as well.

Character encodings of A

Most Indic scripts are encoded in the

Unicode Standard Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, whic ...

, and as such the letter A in those scripts can be represented in plain text with unique codepoint. A from several modern-use scripts can also be found in legacy encodings, such as

ISCII Indian Script Code for Information Interchange (ISCII) is a coding scheme for representing various writing systems of India. It encodes the main Indic scripts and a Roman transliteration. The supported scripts are: Bengali–Assamese, Devanagar ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:A (Indic) Indic letters