Alphabet Letters
Brahmi E 𑀏
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
E is the front mid vowel, and in Sanskrit it is always long and always heavy in metre, with no short counterpart in the classical language. Historically it is the outcome of a and i falling together, which is why the grammarians class it with the compound vowels rather than with the simple ones, and why it stands after the a, i and u series rather than among them. The Brahmi order places it eleventh, and its mark is written above the consonant sign. The Old Tamil use of the script needed a short e as well as a long one, and provided for the distinction separately, because it is one that neither Sanskrit nor Prakrit had any occasion to make. Its long value is also why a syllable containing it counts as heavy in Sanskrit verse whatever the consonants around it happen to be.
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 the vowel it writes, 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 vowel e, always long in Sanskrit; eleventh letter of the Brahmi order 3Tradition: Modern scholarly naming of the Brahmi letters 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 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 PositionEleventh letter of the Brahmi order, first of the four vowels the grammarians treat as compound 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy How the Letter JoinsAn independent vowel letter takes no attachment. After a consonant the same vowel is written not with this letter but as a mark added to the consonant sign 1Tradition: Comparative writing systems Attributions
Associated SoundThe front mid vowel, always long and heavy in metre in Sanskrit; historically the outcome of a and i combining, and the first strengthening grade of i 2Tradition: Indian epigraphy Transmission
Manuscript TraditionAttested from the Asokan rock and pillar edicts of the third century BCE, the earliest substantial Brahmi corpus. 2 Learn More
E, and the Vowel That Has No Short Form
Sanskrit has no short e. The vowel is always long, always heavy in metre, and the classical language offers no contrast of quantity for it at all, which sets it apart from the a, i and u series where every vowel has a partner. The reason is historical: e is what an older a and i became when they fell together, and a sound produced by two vowels combining is long by that fact. The grammatical tradition records the outcome by classing e with the compound vowels rather than with the simple ones, which is why it stands after the whole a, i and u sequence in the order instead of beside the front vowels it is made from.
The same combination happens live in the rules of junction. A word ending in a followed by a word beginning in i produces this vowel at the seam, so a reader who meets it in a Sanskrit sentence has to consider whether it belongs to a word or marks the join between two. It is also the first strengthening grade of i, so a root with i shows e whenever a suffix calls for the stronger form, and a great many Sanskrit nouns and verbal derivatives are built on exactly that alternation. The vowel is common in Middle Indo-Aryan as well, since several older combinations resolved into it as the language changed.
The Distinction the South Had to Add
The Dravidian languages of the far south do contrast a short e with a long one, and Sanskrit and Prakrit do not, so the Brahmi received from the north was short of a sign the southern languages needed. Tamil-Brahmi handled the shortage in its own way, as it handled the sounds for which it added whole new letters at the end of the order, and the eventual southern solution was to mark the length distinction on the vowel rather than to leave it unwritten. That is a small adjustment beside the three additional consonant letters, but it is the same phenomenon: a writing system received for one language family being fitted to another.
The distinction matters for reading the inscriptions as well as for the history of the script. An orthography that does not mark a contrast the spoken language makes leaves a reader to supply it, and a reader who supplies it from Sanskrit will supply it wrongly. That is one of the standing difficulties of the earliest southern epigraphy, and it is part of why the Tamil-Brahmi material is treated as a distinct field with its own conventions rather than as a regional variant of the northern script. The mark for this vowel is written above the consonant sign, in the band the script keeps for the front vowels.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Derived from This
Devanagari E 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.
Ranjana E continues the sign Brahmi E 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 greng bu continues the Brahmi e, 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
Successive grades of the same series. The vrddhi vowel stands one step above the guna vowel, and the Brahmi mark for it is built by adding to the mark for e rather than by drawing a separate shape.
First strengthening grade. The Indian grammarians describe e as the guna of i, the step the vowel takes when a suffix calls for a stronger form of the root, and the rule is worked constantly in Sanskrit word building.
Greng bu, the vowel sign for e, answers to Brahmi E, the independent vowel letter for the same sound in the ancestor script.
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