Kha (ख) (खवर्ण ''khavarna'') is the second consonant 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 no ...

. It ultimately arose from the

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' o ...

letter 𑀔 (), 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 sev ...

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 ખ, 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 𑘏.

Devanagari-using languages

In all languages, ख is pronounced as or when appropriate. * खण्ड = ''khand'' "clause, fragment" In this example, ख implements its inherent vowel, the

schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...

. * अखरोट = ''akhrot'' "nonsense" In this example, ख deletes the inherent schwa for correct pronunciation. Certain words that have been borrowed from Persian and

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

implement the

nukta ় The nuqta (Hindi–Urdu: //, fa, , noqte; from ar, نقطة, nuqṭa, dot; sometimes also spelled nukta) is a diacritic mark that was introduced in Devanagari and some other Indic scripts to represent sounds not present in the original scrip ...

to more properly approximate the original word. It is then transliterated as a ''x''. * ख़राब = ''xaraab'' "bad"

Conjuncts with ख

Mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

Āryabhaṭa numeration Āryabhaṭa numeration is an alphasyllabic numeral system based on Shiksha, Sanskrit phonemes. It was introduced in the early 6th century in India by Āryabhaṭa, in the first chapter titled ''Gītika Padam'' of his ''Aryabhatiya''. It attr ...

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 that of the Greeks, even after the invention of Indian numerals. The values of the different forms of ख are: *ख = 2 (२) *खि = 200 (२००) *खु = 20,000 (२० ०००) *खृ = 2,000,000 (२० ०० ०००) *खॢ = 20 (२०^८) *खे = 20 (२०^१०) *खै = 20 (२०^१२) *खो = 20 (२०^१४) *खौ = 20 (२०^१६)

References

* Kurt Elfering: ''Die Mathematik des Aryabhata I. Text, Übersetzung aus dem Sanskrit und Kommentar''. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, München, 1975, * Georges Ifrah: ''The Universal History of Numbers. From Prehistory to the Invention of the Computer''. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2000, . * B. L. van der Waerden: ''Erwachende Wissenschaft. Ägyptische, babylonische und griechische Mathematik''. Birkhäuser-Verlag, Basel Stuttgart, 1966, * * {{Devanagari abugida Devanagari letters