Alphabet Letters
Brahmi Nya 𑀜
Brahmi Letters
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Origin Mature Brahmi is securely attested in the edicts of Ashoka in the middle of the third century BCE, and the script could be read again only after James Prinsep worked out its values in 1837
Nya is the palatal nasal and the last member of the second class. Like the velar nasal it does not begin a word, and it occurs essentially only before another palatal, so it is written most often inside a conjunct rather than alone. The Indian phoneticians arrived at the five nasals by asking where each was made rather than by hearing them as one sound with variants, and the result is a table in which every class closes with its own nasal. Brahmi records that analysis directly, and every script descended from it keeps the same five letters in the same five places. The Sanskrit word for knowledge carries a conjunct of the voiced palatal and this nasal, and that cluster is where most readers meet the letter at all.
Facts
Disputed
Origin PeriodMany epigraphists derive Brahmi from a Semitic prototype, most often Aramaic, adapted in the centuries before the Mauryan empire 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Brahmi's ancestry is disputed among epigraphists. Richard Salomon's Indian Epigraphy (Oxford University Press, 1998) surveys two live positions on the origin of the script attested in the Ashokan inscriptions: one derives Brahmi from a Semitic prototype, most often Aramaic, adapted in the centuries before the Mauryan empire; the other holds that it developed inside India itself. The dispute turns on the corpus, since Brahmi is securely attested only from Ashoka's edicts in the middle of the third century BCE onward, first read again by James Prinsep in 1837, and no earlier specimen on either side is securely dated. Both camps compare Brahmi's letterforms against Aramaic and other Semitic scripts using the same paleographic method, and without an intermediate dated example bridging the gap between any proposed ancestor and the Mauryan era script, neither derivation has been shown to fit the evidence better than the other. Origin PeriodOthers argue for a development inside India, and with no securely dated specimen earlier than the edicts the question stays open 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Brahmi's ancestry is disputed among epigraphists. Richard Salomon's Indian Epigraphy (Oxford University Press, 1998) surveys two live positions on the origin of the script attested in the Ashokan inscriptions: one derives Brahmi from a Semitic prototype, most often Aramaic, adapted in the centuries before the Mauryan empire; the other holds that it developed inside India itself. The dispute turns on the corpus, since Brahmi is securely attested only from Ashoka's edicts in the middle of the third century BCE onward, first read again by James Prinsep in 1837, and no earlier specimen on either side is securely dated. Both camps compare Brahmi's letterforms against Aramaic and other Semitic scripts using the same paleographic method, and without an intermediate dated example bridging the gap between any proposed ancestor and the Mauryan era script, neither derivation has been shown to fit the evidence better than the other. Origins
Origin PeriodMature Brahmi is securely attested in the edicts of Ashoka in the middle of the third century BCE, and the script could be read again only after James Prinsep worked out its values in 1837 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Place of OriginThe Indian subcontinent. The Ashokan edicts carry the script from the Gangetic plain across the Deccan to the far south, while the northwest of the same empire wrote in Kharosthi instead 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Origin of the NameThe letter has no traditional name of its own. It is called by its own sound plus the inherent short a, and the form used here is the name the Unicode Standard gives the character 3Tradition: Modern scholarly naming of the Brahmi letters Sense of the Namethe palatal nasal; tenth consonant of the Brahmi order 3Tradition: Modern scholarly naming of the Brahmi letters Transmission
Manuscript TraditionAttested from the Asokan rock and pillar edicts of the third century BCE, the earliest substantial Brahmi corpus. 2 Identity
Script TypeAn abugida: every consonant sign carries an inherent short a, which a vowel mark alters and the virama cancels, so the unit written is the syllable rather than the single sound 1Tradition: Comparative writing systems PositionTenth consonant of the Brahmi order and the nasal that closes the palatal class 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy How the Letter JoinsConsonants that meet with no vowel between them are written as a conjunct, the second stacked beneath or ligatured to the first, rather than as two separate signs 1Tradition: Comparative writing systems Attributions
Associated SoundPalatal nasal. It does not begin a word and occurs essentially only before another palatal, so it is written most often inside a conjunct 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceThe letter belongs to the received Brahmi order, and the corresponding sign in the scripts descended from Brahmi across South and Southeast Asia goes back to it 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Learn More
The Cluster Most Readers Meet It In
The palatal nasal does not begin a word and occurs essentially only before another palatal, so like the velar nasal it lives inside conjuncts. The particular conjunct that carries most of its traffic is the one formed with the voiced palatal before it, which spells the Sanskrit word for knowledge and the whole family of terms built on the root meaning to know. Those words run through the philosophical and devotional literature of the subcontinent, and for most readers the cluster is the only place the letter is ever encountered.
What became of that cluster in the descendant scripts is one of the standard illustrations of how far a ligature can drift. In several of the northern alphabets the two letters fused into a single shape in which neither component can be made out, and the pronunciation drifted with it, so that the same written cluster is read quite differently in different modern languages. In Brahmi the two parts are still separately visible when the conjunct is written, which is one of the ways the parent script is easier for a beginner than its children. The alternative to writing the nasal letter at all is the anusvara, the dot that says a nasal is present and lets the following consonant say which.
Five Nasals, and Why That Is a Discovery
It takes a deliberate act of analysis to arrive at five nasals. What a listener hears is one nasal sound that changes slightly according to what follows it, and most writing systems in the world record it with one letter, leaving the variation to the reader. The Indian phoneticians instead asked where each variety is made, found five points of articulation matching the five classes of stops exactly, and gave each its own sign. That is a finding about the sound system rather than a convenience of the writing, and it anticipates by a very long way the terms modern phonetics uses for the same facts.
Brahmi records the finding directly, and every script descended from it keeps the five letters in the five places that close the five classes. The arrangement is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that the inventory follows the Indian analysis of speech rather than the order of any alphabet received from outside the subcontinent. The letter shapes may well be borrowed, and epigraphists have argued about their source since the script was first read again; the structure of the table is not borrowed from anywhere, because nothing outside India had it.
The five nasals also give a script something to do with the anusvara. Because the value of that dot is determined by the following consonant, and because the following consonant belongs to one of the five classes, the mark and the five letters are two ways of writing the same information. A script with one nasal letter could not use such a mark, since there would be nothing for the reader to work out. The analysis and the notation are fitted to one another, which is what one expects when the people who worked out the sounds are close to the people who arranged the writing.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Derived from This
Devanagari Nya descends from the Brahmi sign of the same value, through the Gupta and Nagari hands of northern India. The two alphabets align letter for letter because both are laid out in the varnamala order, the arrangement the Sanskrit phoneticians fixed by place of articulation.
The Gurmukhi letter Ñanja continues the sign Brahmi Nya writes in the same place of the inherited series. The descent is not direct: it runs through the Sharada script of the northwest and then the Landa hands of the Punjab, and it is stated from position in the order rather than from shape.
Ranjana Nya continues the sign Brahmi Nya writes in the same place of the inherited varnamala. The descent is not direct: it runs through the Gupta and Siddhamatrka stages of the northern Brahmi line and then the scripts of Nepal, and it is stated from position in the order rather than from shape.
Siddham continues the Brahmi order letter for letter. The descent runs through the late Brahmi of the Gupta period and the Siddhamatrka hand that grows out of it, so this is a lineage rather than a direct copy of the older shape.
Tibetan nya continues the Brahmi nya, keeping its value and its place in the inherited order. The descent of the Tibetan script from the Brahmi family is not disputed; which Indic script of that family served as the immediate model in the seventh century is, and this link names the ancestor the atlas holds rather than choosing among the candidates.
Related To
The nasal of the palatal class, made at the same point as this stop, with the body of the tongue against the hard palate and the breath let out through the nose. Every class in the table closes with its own nasal.
The nasal of the palatal class, made at the same point as this stop, with the body of the tongue against the hard palate. Every class in the table closes with its own nasal, standing after the stop that opens the class.
The nasal of the palatal class. The five nasals were arrived at by asking where each was made rather than by hearing one sound with variants.
The nasal of the palatal class. Both are voiced and both are made with the body of the tongue against the hard palate, the nasal differing in that the closure is released through the nose.
The nasal of the palatal class, and the letter that closes the group in the recited order before the table moves on to the next point of articulation.
Nya answers to Brahmi Nya, the nasal that closes the palatal line in both scripts; Tibetan drops the intervening voiced aspirate Jha, per its own description: "Tibetan takes the Indian palatal line of five and keeps four."
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