Ḍha (Indic)

Ḍha
Ḍha
Example glyphs
Bengali
Thai	ฒ
Malayalam	ഢ
Sinhala	ඪ
Ashoka Brahmi
Devanagari
Cognates
Hebrew	ד
Greek	Δ
Latin	D
Cyrillic	Д
Properties
Phonemic representation	/ɖʱ/ /tʰ/
IAST transliteration	ḍ Ḍ
ISCII code point	C0 (192)
	; ^B in Tai languages, Khmer and Mon

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Ḍha (also romanized as Ddha) is a consonant of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, Ḍha is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter . As with the other cerebral consonants, ḍha is not found in most scripts for Tai, Sino-Tibetan, and other non-Indic languages, except for a few scripts, which retain these letters for transcribing Sanskrit religious terms.

Āryabhaṭa numeration[]

Aryabhata used Devanagari letters for numbers, very similar to the Greek numerals, even after the invention of Indian numerals. The values of the different forms of ढ are:^[1]

ढ [ɖʰə] = 14 (१४)
ढि [ɖʰɪ] = 1,400 (१ ४००)
ढु [ɖʰʊ] = 140,000 (१ ४० ०००)
ढृ [ɖʰri] = 14,000,000 (१ ४० ०० ०००)
ढॢ [ɖʰlə] = 1,400,000,000 (१ ४० ०० ०० ०००)
ढे [ɖʰe] = 14×10¹⁰ (१४×१०^१०)
ढै [ɖʰɛː] = 14×10¹² (१४×१०^१२)
ढो [ɖʰoː] = 14×10¹⁴ (१४×१०^१४)
ढौ [ɖʰɔː] = 14×10¹⁶ (१४×१०^१६)

Historic Ddha[]

There are three different general early historic scripts - Brahmi and its variants, Kharoṣṭhī, and Tocharian, the so-called slanting Brahmi. Ddha as found in standard Brahmi, was a simple geometric shape, with variations toward more flowing forms by the Gupta . The Tocharian Ddha did not have an alterante Fremdzeichen form. The third form of ddha, in Kharoshthi () was probably derived from Aramaic separately from the Brahmi letter.

Brahmi Ddha[]

The Brahmi letter , Ddha, is probably derived from the altered Aramaic Dalet , and is thus related to the modern Latin D and Greek Delta.^[2] Several identifiable styles of writing the Brahmi Ddha 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 Ddha historic forms
Ashoka (3rd-1st c. BCE)	Girnar (~150 BCE)	Kushana (~150-250 CE)	Gujarat (~250 CE)	Gupta (~350 CE)

Tocharian Ddha[]

The Tocharian letter is derived from the Brahmi , but does not have an alternate Fremdzeichen form.

Tocharian Ddha with vowel marks
Ddha	Ddhā	Ddhi	Ddhī	Ddhu	Ddhū	Ddhr	Ddhr̄	Ddhe	Ddhai	Ddho	Ddhau	Ddhä

Kharoṣṭhī Ddha[]

The Kharoṣṭhī letter is generally accepted as being derived from the altered Aramaic Dalet , and is thus related to D and Delta, in addition to the Brahmi Ddha.^[2]

Devanagari Ḍha[]

Ḍha (ढ) is a consonant 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 ઢ, and the Modi letter

B

[1]

[2]

[3]