Ṭa (Indic)


Ṭa is a consonant of Indic abugidas. It is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter. As with the other cerebral consonants, ṭa 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

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

Brahmi Tta

The Brahmi letter, Tta, is probably derived from the altered Aramaic Teth, and is thus related to the modern Greek Theta. Several identifiable styles of writing the Brahmi Tta can be found, most associated with a specific set of inscriptions from an artifact or diverse records from an historic period. 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.
Ashoka
Girnar
Kushana
Gujarat
Gupta

Tocharian Tta

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

Kharoṣṭhī Tta

The Kharoṣṭhī letter is generally accepted as being derived from the altered Aramaic Teth, and is thus related to Theta, in addition to the Brahmi Tta.

Devanagari script

Ṭa is the eleventh 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 ટ, and the Modi letter ?.

Devanagari-using Languages

In many languages, ट is pronounced as or when appropriate. In Marathi, ट is sometimes pronounced as or in addition to or. Like all Indic scripts, Devanagari uses vowel marks attached to the base consonant to override the inherent /ə/ vowel:
ṬaṬāṬiṬīṬuṬūṬrṬr̄ṬlṬl̄ṬeṬaiṬoṬauṬ
टटाटिटीटुटूटृटॄटॢटॣटेटैटोटौट्

Conjuncts with ट

Devanagari exhibits conjunct ligatures, as is common in Indic scripts. In modern Devanagari texts, most conjuncts are formed by reducing the letter shape to fit tightly to the following letter, usually by dropping a character's vertical stem, sometimes referred to as a "half form". Some conjunct clusters are always represented by a true ligature, instead of a shape that can be broken into constituent independent letters. Vertically stacked conjuncts are ubiquitous in older texts, while only a few are still used routinely in modern Devanagari texts. Tta however, does not have a vertical stem to drop for making a half form, and either forms a stacked conjunct/ligature, or uses its full form with Virama. The use of ligatures and vertical conjuncts may vary across languages using the Devanagari script, with Marathi in particular preferring the use of half forms where texts in other languages would show ligatures and vertical stacks.

Ligature conjuncts of ट

True ligatures are quite rare in Indic scripts. The most common ligated conjuncts in Devanagari are in the form of a slight mutation to fit in context or as a consistent variant form appended to the adjacent characters. Those variants include Na and the Repha and Rakar forms of Ra. Nepali and Marathi texts use the "eyelash" Ra half form for an initial "R" instead of repha.

Stacked conjuncts of ट

Vertically stacked ligatures are the most common conjunct forms found in Devanagari text. Although the constituent characters may need to be stretched and moved slightly in order to stack neatly, stacked conjuncts can be broken down into recognizable base letters, or a letter and an otherwise standard ligature.

Bengali script

The Bengali script ট is derived from the Siddhaṃ, and is marked by a similar horizontal head line, but less geometric shape, than its Devanagari counterpart, ट. The inherent vowel of Bengali consonant letters is /ɔ/, so the bare letter ট will sometimes be transliterated as "tto" instead of "tta". Adding okar, the "o" vowel mark, gives a reading of /t̳o/.
Like all Indic consonants, ট can be modified by marks to indicate another vowel than its inherent "a".
ttattāttittīttuttūttrttr̄ttettaittottautt
টটাটিটীটুটূটৃটৄটেটৈটোটৌট্

ট in Bengali-using languages

ট is used as a basic consonant character in all of the major Bengali script orthographies, including Bengali and Assamese.

Conjuncts with ট

Bengali ট exhibits conjunct ligatures, as is common in Indic scripts, and commonly shows both stacked and linear ligatures.

Gujarati script

Ṭa is the eleventh consonant of the Gujarati script. It is possibly derived from a variant of 16th century Devanagari letter ṭa with the top bar removed.

Burmese script

Ta T'lin Cheik is the eleventh letter of the Burmese script.

Thai script

To Patak is the fifteenth letter of the Thai script. It falls under the low class of Thai consonants. In IPA, to patak is pronounced as at the beginning of a syllable and may not be used to close a syllable. The 21st letter of the alphabet, to tao, is also named to and falls under the middle class of Thai consonants. Thai consonants do not form conjunct ligatures, and use the pinthu—an explicit virama with a dot shape—to indicate bare consonants. In the acrophony of the Thai script, patak means ‘skewers’. To Patak corresponds to the Sanskrit character ‘ट’.

Javanese script