Ā (Indic)

Ā
Example glyphs
Bengali
Tibetan	ཨཱ
Tamil
Thai	า
Malayalam	ആ
Sinhala	ආ
Ashoka Brahmi
Devanagari
Cognates
Hebrew	א
Greek	Α
Latin	A, Ɑ
Cyrillic	А, Я, Ҍ
Properties
Phonemic representation	/ɑː/ /aː/
IAST transliteration	ā Ā
ISCII code point	A5 (165)

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Ā is a vowel of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, Aa is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter . As an Indic vowel, "Ā" comes in two normally distinct forms: 1) as an independent letter, and 2) as a vowel sign for modifying a base consonant. Bare consonants without a modifying vowel sign have the inherent short "A" vowel.

Āryabhaṭa numeration[]

Aryabhata used Devanagari letters for numbers, very similar to the Greek numerals, even after the invention of Indian numerals. The "Ā" modifier could be used to indicate a consonant's base value, although the unmodified consonant had this value as well. The independent vowel letter आ was not used to indicate any numeric value in the Aryabhata system.^[1]

Historic Ā[]

There are three different general early historic scripts - Brahmi and its variants, Kharoṣṭhī, and Tocharian, the so-called slanting Brahmi. Aa as found in standard Brahmi, was a simple geometric shape, with variations toward more flowing forms by the Gupta . Like all Brahmic scripts, Tocharian Ā has an accompanying vowel mark for modifying a base consonant. In Kharoṣṭhī, the only independent vowel letter is for the inherent A. All other independent vowels, including Ā are indicated with vowel marks added to the letter A.

Brahmi Ā[]

The Brahmi letter Ā , is probably derived from the Aramaic Alef , and is thus related to the modern Latin A and Greek Alpha.^[2] Several identifiable styles of writing the Brahmi Aa can be found, most associated with a specific set of inscriptions from an artifact or diverse records from an historic period.^[3] As the earliest and most geometric style of Brahmi, the letters found on the Edicts of Ashoka 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.

Brahmi Ā historic forms

Ashoka (3rd-1st c. BCE)	Girnar (~150 BCE)	Kushana (~150-250 CE)	Gujarat (~250 CE)	Gupta (~350 CE)

Tocharian Ā[]

The Tocharian letter is derived from the Brahmi . Unlike some of the consonants, Tocharian vowels do not have a Fremdzeichen form.

Tocharian consonants with Ā vowel marks

Kaa	Khaa	Gaa	Ghaa	Caa	Chaa	Jaa	Jhaa	Nyaa	Ṭaa	Ṭhaa	Ḍaa	Ḍhaa	Ṇaa
Taa	Thaa	Daa	Dhaa	Naa	Paa	Phaa	Baa	Bhaa	Maa	Yaa	Raa	Laa	Vaa
Śaa	Ṣaa	Saa	Haa

Kharoṣṭhī Ā[]

The Kharoṣṭhī letter Ā is indicated with the vowel length mark . As an independent vowel, Ā is indicated by adding this vowel mark to the independent vowel letter A .

Devanagari Ā[]

Devanagari independent Ā and Ā vowel sign.

Ā (आ) is a vowel of the Devanagari abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , after having gone through the Gupta letter . Letters that derive from it are the Gujarati letter આ, and the Modi letter