Ga (Indic)

Ga
Ga
Example glyphs
Bengali
Tibetan
Thai	ค
Malayalam	ഗ
Sinhala	ග
Ashoka Brahmi
Devanagari
Cognates
Hebrew	ג
Greek	Γ
Latin	C, G, Ɣ
Cyrillic	Г, Ґ
Properties
Phonemic representation	/g/ /k/ /kʰ/
IAST transliteration	ga Ga
ISCII code point	B5 (181)
	; ^B In Khmer, Tai Viet, Tai Lü, Northern Thai and Tai Khün; ^C In Thai and Lao

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Ga is the third consonant of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, ga is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter , which is probably derived from the Aramaic letter (gimel, /g/) 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 ग are:^[1]

ग [gə] = 3 (३)
ग [gɪ] = 300 (३००)
गु [gʊ] = 30,000 (३० ०००)
गृ [gri] = 3,000,000 (३० ०० ०००)
गॣ [glə] = 3×10⁸ (३०^८)
गे [ge] = 3×10¹⁰ (३०^१०)
गै [gɛː] = 3×10¹² (३०^१२)
गो [goː] = 3×10¹⁴ (३०^१४)
गौ [gɔː] = 3×10¹⁶ (३०^१६)

Historic Ga[]

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

Brahmi Ga[]

The Brahmi letter , Ga, is probably derived from the Aramaic Gimel , and is thus related to the modern Latin G and C, and the Greek Gamma. Several identifiable styles of writing the Brahmi Ga can be found, most associated with a specific set of inscriptions from an artifact or diverse records from an historic period.^[2] 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 Ga historic forms
Ashoka (3rd-1st c. BCE)	Girnar (~150 BCE)	Kushana (~150-250 CE)	Gujarat (~250 CE)	Gupta (~350 CE)

Tocharian Ga[]

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

Tocharian Ga with vowel marks
Ga	Gā	Gi	Gī	Gu	Gū	Gr	Gr̄	Ge	Gai	Go	Gau	Gä

Kharoshthi Ga[]

The Kharoshthi letter is generally accepted as being derived from the Aramaic Gimel , and is thus related to G and C, and Gamma, in addition to the Brahmi Ga.

Devanagari script[]

Ga (ग) is the third 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 ગ and the Modi letter

B

C

[1]

[2]