Alphabet Letters
Brahmi Uu 𑀊
Brahmi Letters
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
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
Uu is the long labial vowel, the same rounded sound as u held for two morae. It follows its short partner in the Brahmi order, as each long vowel follows its short one. Its mark hangs beneath the consonant sign, distinguished from the short mark by an added turn, and the independent letter is used only at the beginning of a word. Vowel length is phonemic in the languages the script records and it is also metrical: a syllable with a long vowel is heavy, and the quantitative metres of Sanskrit and Prakrit verse are built on that difference, which is why the two marks are worth the trouble of keeping apart in a hand cut into stone. An independent vowel letter is in any case uncommon on the page, because only a word that opens with a vowel has any occasion to use one.
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 long u vowel; sixth letter 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 PositionSixth letter of the Brahmi order and the long partner of the fifth vowel 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 SoundLong u, the same rounded labial vowel held for two morae; its mark hangs beneath the consonant sign with a turn that distinguishes it from the short mark 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
Long U and the Weight of a Syllable
A syllable containing this vowel is heavy, whatever consonants stand around it, and that fact governs the whole of Sanskrit and Prakrit versification. The classical metres are counted patterns of heavy and light syllables, and a great deal of the poetry the script was later used to record is unreadable as verse unless the two u vowels are held apart. The distinction also separates ordinary words, and it carries grammatical information: long u is the ending of a set of feminine stems and appears in the strong forms of several roots.
The vowel is much less common than its short partner, which is the ordinary pattern for the long members of the vowel pairs, and in the Middle Indo-Aryan of the Ashokan edicts it is rarer still, since Prakrit shortened many inherited long vowels before a consonant cluster. A reader coming to a Brahmi inscription from Sanskrit therefore meets fewer long vowels than expected, and the shortage is a feature of the language rather than a carelessness of the scribe. Editors record what the stone shows rather than what the Sanskrit form would require, and the resulting apparatus is one of the standing sources of evidence for how Middle Indo-Aryan actually sounded in the third century BCE.
One Turn of the Stroke
The mark for long u differs from the mark for short u by an added turn, and both hang below the consonant sign. It is a small difference to carry a large distinction, and it is exactly the kind of difference that a weathered surface destroys. Where the vowel quantity of a word in an inscription is uncertain, it is usually one of these two marks that is at issue, and the reading offered will often depend on what the language requires rather than on what can actually be seen. That is legitimate practice and it is stated openly in a careful edition, but it means the epigraphic record of vowel quantity is thinner than the transcriptions can make it appear.
The independent letter has the narrower use of the two forms, since only a word opening with the vowel calls for it. Words beginning with long u are not numerous in either Sanskrit or Prakrit, so the sign is among those an inscription of moderate length may never have occasion to carry. It keeps its place in the order regardless, because the order runs through the vowels in short and long pairs and a missing member would break the pattern the whole table is taught by. Every script descended from Brahmi keeps the letter in sixth place for the same reason.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Derived from This
Devanagari Uu 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 Uu continues the sign Brahmi Uu 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.
Related To
Quantity partners. Both are made with the lips rounded, and the longer of the two is held for two morae rather than one.
Quantity partners. Both are made with the lips rounded; Uu is the long counterpart of U.
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.