Bha (Indic)

Bha
Bha
Example glyphs
Bengali
Tibetan	བྷ
Thai	ภ
Malayalam	ഭ
Sinhala	භ
Ashoka Brahmi
Devanagari
Cognates
Hebrew	ב
Greek	Β
Latin	B
Cyrillic	В, Б
Properties
Phonemic representation	/bʰ/ /pʰ/
IAST transliteration	bh Bh
ISCII code point	CB (203)
	; ^B in Tai languages, Mon and Khmer

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Bha is a consonant of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, Bha 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 भ are:^[1]

भ [bʰə] = 24 (२४)
भि [bʰɪ] = 2,400 (२ ४००)
भु [bʰʊ] = 240,000 (२ ४० ०००)
भृ [bʰri] = 24,000,000 (२ ४० ०० ०००)
भॢ [bʰlə] = 24×10⁸ (२४×१०^८)
भे [bʰe] = 24×10¹⁰ (२४×१०^१०)
भै [bʰɛː] = 24×10¹² (२४×१०^१२)
भो [bʰoː] = 24×10¹⁴ (२४×१०^१४)
भौ [bʰɔː] = 24×10¹⁶ (२४×१०^१६)

Historic Bha[]

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

Brahmi Bha[]

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

Tocharian Bha[]

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

Tocharian Bha with vowel marks
Bha	Bhā	Bhi	Bhī	Bhu	Bhū	Bhr	Bhr̄	Bhe	Bhai	Bho	Bhau	Bhä

Kharoṣṭhī Bha[]

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

Devanagari Bha[]

Bha (भ) 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 ભ, and the Modi letter

B

[1]

[2]

[3]