Ba (Indic)

Ba
Ba
Example glyphs
Bengali
Tibetan
Malayalam	ബ
Sinhala	බ
Ashoka Brahmi
Devanagari
Cognates
Hebrew	ב
Greek	Β
Latin	B
Cyrillic	В, Б
Properties
Phonemic representation	/b/
IAST transliteration	b B
ISCII code point	CA (202)

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Ba is a consonant of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, Ba is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter .

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 ब are:^[1]

ब [bə] = 23 (२३)
बि [bɪ] = 2,300 (२ ३००)
बु [bʊ] = 230,000 (२३० ०००)
बृ [bri] = 23,000,000 (२३० ०० ०००)
बॢ [blə] = 23×10⁸ (२३×१०^८)
बे [be] = 23×10¹⁰ (२३×१०^१०)
बै [bɛː] = 23×10¹² (२३×१०^१२)
बो [boː] = 23×10¹⁴ (२३×१०^१४)
बौ [bɔː] = 23×10¹⁶ (२३×१०^१६)

Historic Ba[]

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

Brahmi Ba[]

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

Tocharian Ba[]

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

Tocharian Ba with vowel marks
Ba	Bā	Bi	Bī	Bu	Bū	Br	Br̄	Be	Bai	Bo	Bau	Bä

Kharoṣṭhī Ba[]

The Kharoṣṭhī letter is generally accepted as being derived from the Aramaic Bet , and is thus related to B and Beta, in addition to the Brahmi Ba.^[2]

Devanagari Ba[]

Ba (ब) 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 બ, and the Modi letter

[1]

[2]

[3]