Alphabet Letters
Devanagari Tta ट
Devanagari Letters
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Origin Devanagari forms settle between roughly the seventh and the tenth centuries CE, descending from Brahmi through the Gupta and Nagari hands
Tta is the eleventh consonant of the varnamala and the head of the third varga, the retroflex class. Retroflex sounds are made with the tip of the tongue curled back to touch the roof of the mouth behind the teeth ridge, and their presence as a full series is one of the features that most sharply distinguishes the languages of South Asia from their relatives elsewhere. The Sanskrit phoneticians named the class murdhanya, from the word for the crown or top, describing exactly where the contact is made. Where the series came from is a genuinely open question in historical linguistics, with a long-running argument between contact with Dravidian languages and development from within Indo-Aryan itself.
Facts
Disputed
Origin PeriodWhere the retroflex series came from is unsettled: one camp derives it from contact with Dravidian, the other from sound change internal to Indo-Aryan 1Tradition: Historical linguistics of South Asia The World's Writing Systems, edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright with contributions from specialists in Indo-Aryan and Dravidian historical linguistics, Oxford University Press, 1996, sets out two competing accounts of how Sanskrit's retroflex consonants arose, camps that remain both currently held. The contact account points to retroflexion attested across unrelated South Asian language families and to its presence in Dravidian from the earliest reconstructable stage, treating language contact as the cause. The internal account instead derives most Sanskrit retroflexes by regular sound-change rules from earlier consonant clusters, with no appeal to contact at all, and some scholars argue for a combination of internal development reinforced by contact. The volume's comparative historical linguistic method cannot produce decisive evidence either way because the relevant contact period is prehistoric for both families and the Indus script, which might otherwise bear on the question, remains undeciphered. This atlas names the camps and does not choose between them. Attributions
Associated SoundVoiceless unaspirated retroflex stop, made with the tongue tip curled back to the roof of the mouth; the grammarians call the class murdhanya 2Tradition: Sanskrit phonetics of the grammarians Origins
Origin PeriodDevanagari forms settle between roughly the seventh and the tenth centuries CE, descending from Brahmi through the Gupta and Nagari hands 3Tradition: Indian epigraphy Place of OriginNorthern India 3Tradition: Indian epigraphy Origin of the NameNamed by its own sound plus the inherent short a. Devanagari letter names carry no word meaning, unlike the Greek and Semitic names 1Tradition: Sanskrit phonetics of the grammarians Sense of the NameThe voiceless unaspirated retroflex, heading the third varga; formed with the tongue tip curled back to the roof of the mouth. 2 Identity
Script TypeConsonant sign of a Brahmi-derived abugida; it carries the inherent short a unless a dependent vowel sign is written 1 PositionEleventh consonant of the varnamala and first member of the retroflex class, the third varga 1Tradition: Sanskrit phonetics of the grammarians Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceCounted among the matrika, the fifty little mothers of the letter-garland; the count belongs to the series, not to this letter alone 4Tradition: Hindu Tantra, the garland of letters A property of the fifty-letter series. Individual schools assign further correspondences that differ between traditions and are not adopted here. Learn More
Tta: The Retroflex Class and What Makes It Distinctive
Tta is the eleventh consonant of the varnamala and the head of the third varga, the retroflex class. A retroflex sound is made with the tip of the tongue curled back to touch the roof of the mouth behind the ridge of the teeth, and the result is audibly different from the dental made a short distance in front of it. The Sanskrit phoneticians named the class murdhanya, from the word for the crown or top of the head, describing where they understood the contact to fall, and they placed it third in the table because the progression runs from the back of the mouth forwards and the retroflex point lies between the palate and the teeth.
A full series of retroflex stops is the feature that most sharply marks the languages of South Asia off from their relatives elsewhere, and it is shared across the region by languages of several unrelated families. Sanskrit has five retroflexes among the stops, a retroflex nasal, a retroflex sibilant and a retroflex vowel, so the position is used throughout the sound system rather than at one or two points. In classical Sanskrit many of the retroflexes that appear in written words are produced by rule rather than inherited: a dental consonant is converted into its retroflex counterpart in the neighbourhood of certain earlier sounds, and the change is stated with great precision in the grammar.
Where the Retroflex Series Came From, and Why That Is Still Argued
The origin of the retroflex series is one of the genuinely open questions in the history of the Indo-Aryan languages, and this atlas does not settle it. Two positions have been argued for well over a century and both are held by serious scholars today. The first holds that the series arose through contact, with speakers of Dravidian languages, which have retroflexion natively, shaping the phonology of Indo-Aryan as the two families came into sustained contact in the subcontinent; the argument points to the areal spread of retroflexion across unrelated language families in South Asia and to the presence of the feature in Dravidian from the earliest reconstructable stage. The second holds that the series developed internally, from sound changes within Indo-Aryan itself operating on inherited clusters, and points to the fact that a large proportion of Sanskrit retroflexes can be derived by regular rules from earlier sequences without appealing to contact at all.
The positions are not mutually exclusive in every version, and some scholars argue for internal development reinforced by contact. What is not available is a decisive piece of evidence, because the relevant period is prehistoric for both families and the Indus script remains undeciphered. This atlas records the disagreement as a disagreement, names the camps, and leaves it open. Nothing about the letter's place in the varnamala or its articulation depends on which account is right.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Derived From
Devanagari Tta 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.
Related To
Ranjana Tta and Devanagari Tta hold the same position in the inherited varnamala and write the same sound, as separate northern Brahmi descendants rather than as variants of one script. Devanagari is the relative most readers know, so the two charts can be read against each other.
The same letter of the same order in Devanagari. The two scripts are separate descendants of the same late Brahmi stock rather than one being taken from the other, which is why the sound value and the position agree while the shapes do not.
Devanagari Tta and the Gurmukhi letter Ṭainka answer to the same sound and to the same slot of the varnamala. Gurmukhi descends from Sharada rather than from the Nagari line, so the agreement is inherited from a shared Brahmi ancestor rather than borrowed from Devanagari.
Tainka and the Devanagari letter Tta answer to the same sound and to the same slot of the varnamala. Gurmukhi descends from Sharada rather than from the Nagari line, so the agreement is inherited from a shared Brahmi ancestor rather than borrowed from Devanagari.
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