Va or Wa is a consonant of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, Va is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter . It is generally romanized as "Va" in scripts for Indic languages, but as "Wa" in many scripts for other language families.

Quick Facts Example glyphs, Bengali–Assamese ...

Va
Example glyphs
Bengali–Assamese
Tibetan	ཝ
Tamil
Thai	ว
Malayalam	വ
Sinhala	ව
Ashoka Brahmi
Devanagari
Cognates
Hebrew	ו
Greek	Ϝ (Ϛ), Υ (Ȣ)
Latin	F, V, U, W, Y, Ⅎ
Cyrillic	Ѕ, У (Ꙋ), Ѵ, Ю
Properties
Phonemic representation	/ʋ/
IAST transliteration	v V
ISCII code point	D4 (212)

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This article contains uncommon Unicode characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of the intended characters.

Aryabhata 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 व are:^[1]

• व [ʋə] = 60 (६०)
• वि [ʋɪ] = 6,000 (६ ०००)
• वु [ʋʊ] = 600,000 (६ ०० ०००)
• वृ [ʋri] = 60,000,000 (६ ०० ०० ०००)
• वॢ [ʋlə] = 6×10⁹ (६×१०^९)
• वे [ʋe] = 6×10¹¹ (६×१०^११)
• वै [ʋɛː] = 6×10¹³ (६×१०^१३)
• वो [ʋoː] = 6×10¹⁵ (६×१०^१५)
• वौ [ʋɔː] = 6×10¹⁷ (६×१०^१७)

There are three different general early historic scripts - Brahmi and its variants, Kharoṣṭhī, and Tocharian, the so-called slanting Brahmi. Va as found in standard Brahmi, was a simple geometric shape, with variations toward more flowing forms by the Gupta . The Tocharian Va had an alternate Fremdzeichen form, . The third form of va, in Kharoshthi () was probably derived from Aramaic separately from the Brahmi letter.

Brahmi Va

The Brahmi letter , Va, is probably derived from the Aramaic Waw , and is thus related to the modern Latin F, V, U, W, Y, and Greek Upsilon.^[2] There are numerous distinguishable Brahmi Va writing styles, most of which are connected to a collection of inscriptions from an artifact or a variety of documents from a historical era.^[3] 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.

More information Ashoka (3rd-1st c. BCE), Girnar (~150 BCE) ...

Brahmi Va historic forms

Ashoka (3rd-1st c. BCE)	Girnar (~150 BCE)	Kushana (~150-250 CE)	Gujarat (~250 CE)	Gupta (~350 CE)

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Tocharian Va

The Tocharian letter is derived from the Brahmi , and has an alternate Fremdzeichen form used in conjuncts and as an alternate representation of Vä.

More information Vā, Vi ...

Tocharian Va with vowel marks

Va	Vā	Vi	Vī	Vu	Vū	Vr	Vr̄	Ve	Vai	Vo	Vau	Vä	Fremdzeichen

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Va (व) is a 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 વ, and the Modi letter 𑘪.

The Bengali script ব is derived from the Siddhaṃ , and is marked by a similar horizontal head line, but less geometric shape, than its Devanagari counterpart, व. Unlike many of its cognates in other Indic scripts, ব is primarily identified as the /b/ consonant, especially as an independent consonant. It tends to have no inherent pronunciation itself when in a non-head position of a conjuct conjunct, often serving as an indication of gemination (doubling) of the preceding consonant sound, although there are a few words where it retains its /b/ pronunciation. Like all Indic consonants, ব can be modified by marks to indicate another (or no) vowel than its inherent "a".

Conjuncts with non-head ব

Bengali ব exhibits conjunct ligatures, as is common in Indic scripts, with a tendency towards stacked ligatures. When used as the head (first) consonant in a conjunct, ব is normally pronounced as /b/.^[5]

See also: Ba (Indic) § Conjuncts with head ব

Bengali Va-phala

Like Ra and Ya, the Bengali Va is almost always realized in a reduced form called "Va phala" (vo pholo) when found as the final consonant of a conjunct. This reduced form is appended at the bottom of a vertical stem, or otherwise attached at the bottom of a preceding consonant or conjunct.

• ভ্ (bʰ) + ব (va) gives the ligature bʰva:

• চ্ (c) + ছ্ (cʰ) + ব (va) gives the ligature ccʰva:

• চ্ (c) + ব (va) gives the ligature cva:

• ড্ (ḍ) + ব (va) gives the ligature ḍva:

• দ্ (d) + দ্ (d) + ব (va) gives the ligature ddva:

• দ্ (d) + ব (va) gives the ligature dva:

• গ্ (g) + ব (va) gives the ligature gva:

• জ্ (j) + জ্ (j) + ব (va) gives the ligature jjva:

• জ্ (j) + ব (va) gives the ligature jva:

• খ্ (kʰ) + ব (va) gives the ligature kʰva:

• ক্ (k) + ষ্ (ṣ) + ব (va) gives the ligature kṣva:

• ক্ (k) + ব (va) gives the ligature kva:

• ল্ (l) + ব (va) gives the ligature lva:

• ম্ (m) + ব (va) gives the ligature mva:

• ন্ (n) + দ্ (d) + ব (va) gives the ligature ndva:

• ন্ (n) + ত্ (t) + ব (va) gives the ligature ntva:

• ন্ (n) + ব (va) gives the ligature nva:

• র্ (r) + দ্ (d) + ব (va) gives the ligature rdva, with repha in addition to va phala:

• র্ (r) + শ্ (ʃ) + ব (va) gives the ligature rʃva, with repha in addition to va phala:

• শ্ (ʃ) + ব (va) gives the ligature ʃva:

• ষ্ (ṣ) + ব (va) gives the ligature ṣva:

• স্ (s) + ত্ (t) + ব (va) gives the ligature stva:

• স্ (s) + ব (va) gives the ligature sva:

• থ্ (tʰ) + ব (va) gives the ligature tʰva:

• ট্ (ṭ) + ব (va) gives the ligature ṭva:

• ত্ (t) + ত্ (t) + ব (va) gives the ligature ttva:

• ত্ (t) + ব (va) gives the ligature tva:

Other ব conjuncts

A few letters conjoin with ব by keeping it in its full form instead of the reduced Va-phala.

• ধ্ (dʱ) + ব (va) gives the ligature dʱva with full-form va:

• র্ (r) + ধ্ (dʱ) + ব (va) gives the ligature rdʱva, with repha:

• ম্ (m) + ব্ (v) + র (ra) gives the ligature mvra, with the ra phala suffix. Note that this is a different base conjunct than mva, above:

Va (વ) is the twenty-ninth consonant of the Gujarati abugida. It is derived from the Devanagari Va with the top bar (shiro rekha) removed, and ultimately the Brahmi letter .

Va (వ) is a consonant of the Telugu abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter . It is closely related to the Kannada letter ವ. Most Telugu consonants contain a v-shaped headstroke that is related to the horizontal headline found in other Indic scripts, although headstrokes do not connect adjacent letters in Telugu. The headstroke is normally lost when adding vowel matras. Telugu conjuncts are created by reducing trailing letters to a subjoined form that appears below the initial consonant of the conjunct. Many subjoined forms are created by dropping their headline, with many extending the end of the stroke of the main letter body to form an extended tail reaching up to the right of the preceding consonant. This subjoining of trailing letters to create conjuncts is in contrast to the leading half forms of Devanagari and Bengali letters. Ligature conjuncts are not a feature in Telugu, with the only non-standard construction being an alternate subjoined form of Ṣa (borrowed from Kannada) in the KṢa conjunct.

Va (വ) is a consonant of the Malayalam abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via the Grantha letter Va. Like in other Indic scripts, Malayalam consonants have the inherent vowel "a", and take one of several modifying vowel signs to represent syllables with another vowel or no vowel at all.

Wa (ୱ) is a consonant of the Odia abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via the Siddhaṃ letter Va.^{[citation needed]} Like in other Indic scripts, Odia consonants have the inherent vowel "a", and take one of several modifying vowel signs to represent syllables with another vowel or no vowel at all.

As is common in Indic scripts, Odia joins letters together to form conjunct consonant clusters. The most common conjunct formation is achieved by using a small subjoined form of trailing consonants. Most consonants' subjoined forms are identical to the full form, just reduced in size, although a few drop the curved headline or have a subjoined form not directly related to the full form of the consonant. Wa shares its subjoined form with Ba, called "Ba Phala" or "Wa Phala" depending on its pronunciation in context. Ba is the character normally used for the /w/ and /v/ sounds of the letter Wa. ୱ generates conjuncts only by subjoining and does not form ligatures.

Va (𑂫) is a consonant of the Kaithi abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via the Siddhaṃ letter Va. Like in other Indic scripts, Kaithi consonants have the inherent vowel "a", and take one of several modifying vowel signs to represent syllables with another vowel or no vowel at all.

Vo (វ) is a consonant of the Khmer abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via the Pallava letter Va. Like in other Indic scripts, Khmer consonants have the inherent vowel "a", and take one of several modifying vowel signs to represent syllables with another vowel. Actually, the sounds of the vowels are modified by the consonant; see the article on the Khmer writing system for details.

Note: The vowels (other than vocalic liquids) are shown using the ALA-LC scheme.^[6]

Pali and Sanskrit are written as abugidas with the lack of a vowel between consonants notated as consonants indicated by vertically stacking the consonants without their touching. For phonetically final consonants, the lack of a vowel is marked by virama.

The Khmer language works the same, except that a different method is used for the last consonant of a word. The final consonant in a consonant stack is indicated as having no implicit vowel by applying tôndôkhéad to it. By default, a consonant surmounted by robat is silent and lacks an inherent vowel. The yŭkôlpĭntŭ positively indicates the presence of a final implicit vowel, plus its automatic glottal stop. Otherwise, there is no final vowel, unless the word is of Pali or Sanskrit origin, in which case the spelling is ambiguous. Up until the start of the 20th century, the lack of a final vowel could be indicating by subscripting the consonant, as then done in Lao and in other non-Indic languages using the Tai Tham script. As in the Thai, Lao and Tai Tham scripts, Va served as a mater lectionis representing the sound /ua/. In this rôle, it was subscripted. In Cambodian usage, a new form of subscript was developed for consonantal usage, and the two are now used contrastively.

Tai Tham independent, subjoined and superscript letter Wa.

Wa (ᩅ) is a consonant of the Tai Tham abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via the Pallava letter Va. Like in other Indic scripts, Tai Tham consonants have the inherent vowel "a", and take one of several modifying vowel signs to represent syllables with another vowel.

Notes:

1. The transliteration scheme is an amalgamation of the ALA-LC schemes of Khmer^[6], Pali^[7] and Lao^[8].
2. Many of the matras include subscript wa (), subscript ya (), subscript a () or even the letter a () itself. Anusvara () and visarga () are also used.
3. In the relevant Tai languages, a short vowel in an open syllable includes an underlyinɡ ɡlottal stop.

Additional short vowels not shown above may be synthesised from the corresponding long vowel by appending visarga for open syllables (as shown for Vo) or applying mai sat () for closed syllables (as shown for Vo̹). Unlike the other languages, Lao instead replaces an ī or ư̄ glyph by the corresponding short vowel.

The lack of a vowel between consonants notated as consonants is indicated by vertically stacking the consonants, generally without their touching. The Brahmi style of writing final consonants small and low developed, as vestigially seen in Khmer and Lao, into using subscripting to indicate that a consonant had no vowel of its own. In theory this leaves it ambiguous as to whether a consonant precedes or follows the vowel, but ambiguous cases are rare. Finally, if there is no room for the consonant below, it may be left as an 'independent' consonant or. in some cases, written superscript. Occasionally the visible virama (ra haam) is used, but this may signify that the consonant so marked is silent. The vowel /a/ will be made explicit if the final consonant is notated by a letter and is included in the same stack as the initial consonant or is written in a stack just consisting of that consonant.

Thus Wa may appear as the 'base' consonant with almost any other consonant. Northern Thai traditionally allows it to form an initial consonant cluster with almost any other consonant sound, it can act as a mater lectionis (as shown in the list of matras above for Vūa), and it can be a final consonant, as in the fairly common rime -iv, e.g. 'to be hungry'. To accommodate a lack of space below the base consonants, there are several strategies:

1. Subscript Wa can be written significantly smaller than usual, typically at the size of anusvara. Certain other consonants also exhibit vertically compressed subscript forms, most notably La and Nga.
2. Subscript Wa can be nested within subscript Ma and Na, e.g. Northern Thai <hmūaḍ> /muːat/ 'to twist'.
3. A sequence of subscript items can be written horizontally, rather than vertically. This sequence can continue beneath another base consonant. It can sometime be hard to see that the second subscript belongs with the first consonant rather than the second.
4. For several letters, including Wa, if the space below the base letter is occupied, a final consonant can be written above instead. The result for Wa is frequently indistinguishable from anusvara, and is currently encoded the same, namely as TAI THAM SIGN MAI KANG. It occurs in the sequence <Ya, Wa>, as in the Tai Lue word ᨯ᩠ᨿᩴ '(just) one', where the subscripted letter Ya is used as a mater lectionis. This practice is extremely rare for Wa in Northern Thai.

For example, Northern Thai <hlūaṅ> 'big' can be written as:

1. - two stacks of (1) ha, la, wa all stacked vertically and (2) ṅa;
2. - two stacks: (1) a bent stack of ha, la below ha, wa to the right of la and (2) the single character ṅa. Visually, this is only subtly different from the meaningless two stacks of (1) ha, la and (2) ṅa, wa - ;
3. - two stacks of (1) ha, la and (2) wa, ṅa;

The first two alternatives have the same encoding in Unicode; the font and its configuration determine the rendering.

The various Indic scripts are generally related to each other through adaptation and borrowing, and as such the glyphs for cognate letters, including Va, are related as well.

More information Comparison of Va in different scripts ...

Comparison of Va in different scripts

Aramaic Kharoṣṭhī 𐨬 Ashoka Brahmi Kushana Brahmi[lower-alpha 1] Tocharian[lower-alpha 2]  /  Gupta Brahmi Pallava Kadamba - Bhaiksuki 𑰪 Siddhaṃ Grantha 𑌵 Cham ꨥ Sinhala ව Pyu / Old Mon[lower-alpha 3] - Tibetan ཝ Newa 𑐰 Ahom - Malayalam വ Telugu వ Burmese ဝ Lepcha ᰟ Ranjana Saurashtra ꢮ Dives Akuru 𑤩 Kannada ವ Kayah Li ꤠ Limbu ᤘ Soyombo[lower-alpha 4] 𑩾 Khmer វ Tamil Chakma 𑄤 Tai Tham ᩅ Meitei Mayek ꯋ Gaudi - Thai ว Lao ວ Tai Le ᥝ Marchen 𑲅 Tirhuta 𑒫 New Tai Lue ᦞ / ᦛ Tai Viet ꪫ / ꪪ Aksara Kawi 'Phags-pa ꡓ Odia ଵ Sharada 𑆮 Rejang ꥀ Batak ᯋ Buginese ᨓ Zanabazar Square 𑨭 Bengali-Assamese Takri 𑚦 Javanese ꦮ Balinese ᬯ Makasar 𑻯 Hangul[lower-alpha 5] - Northern Nagari - Dogri 𑠦 Laṇḍā - Sundanese ᮝ Baybayin ᜏ Modi 𑘪 Gujarati વ Khojki 𑈨 Khudabadi 𑋛 Mahajani 𑅯 Tagbanwa ᝯ Devanagari Nandinagari 𑧊 Kaithi Gurmukhi ਵ Multani 𑊤 Buhid ᝏ Canadian Syllabics[lower-alpha 6] - Soyombo[lower-alpha 7] 𑩾 Sylheti Nagari ꠛ Gunjala Gondi 𑵭 Masaram Gondi[lower-alpha 8] 𑴨 Hanuno'o ᜯ Notes The middle "Kushana" form of Brahmi is a later style that emerged as Brahmi scripts were beginning to proliferate. Gupta Brahmi was definitely a stylistic descendant from Kushana, but other Brahmi-derived scripts may have descended from earlier forms. Tocharian is probably derived from the middle period "Kushana" form of Brahmi, although artifacts from that time are not plentiful enough to establish a definite succession. Pyu and Old Mon are probably the precursors of the Burmese script, and may be derived from either the Pallava or Kadamba script May also be derived from Devangari (see bottom left of table) The Origin of Hangul from 'Phags-pa is one of limited influence, inspiring at most a few basic letter shapes. Hangul does not function as an Indic abugida. Although the basic letter forms of the Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics were derived from handwritten Devanagari letters, this abugida indicates vowel sounds by rotations of the letter form, rather than the use of vowel diacritics as is standard in Indic abugidas. May also be derived from Ranjana (see above) Masaram Gondi acts as an Indic abugida, but its letterforms were not derived from any single precursor script.

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Most Indic scripts are encoded in the Unicode Standard, and as such the letter Va in those scripts can be represented in plain text with unique codepoint. Va from several modern-use scripts can also be found in legacy encodings, such as ISCII.

More information Preview, వ ...

Character information

Preview							వ		ଵ		ವ		വ		વ		ਵ
Unicode name	DEVANAGARI LETTER VA		BENGALI LETTER BA		TAMIL LETTER VA		TELUGU LETTER VA		ORIYA LETTER VA		KANNADA LETTER VA		MALAYALAM LETTER VA		GUJARATI LETTER VA		GURMUKHI LETTER VA
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	2357	U+0935	2476	U+09AC	2997	U+0BB5	3125	U+0C35	2869	U+0B35	3253	U+0CB5	3381	U+0D35	2741	U+0AB5	2613	U+0A35
UTF-8	224 164 181	E0 A4 B5	224 166 172	E0 A6 AC	224 174 181	E0 AE B5	224 176 181	E0 B0 B5	224 172 181	E0 AC B5	224 178 181	E0 B2 B5	224 180 181	E0 B4 B5	224 170 181	E0 AA B5	224 168 181	E0 A8 B5
Numeric character reference	व	व	ব	ব	வ	வ	వ	వ	ଵ	ଵ	ವ	ವ	വ	വ	વ	વ	ਵ	ਵ
ISCII	212	D4	212	D4	212	D4	212	D4	212	D4	212	D4	212	D4	212	D4	212	D4

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More information Preview, 𐨬 ...

Character information

Preview	Ashoka Kushana Gupta		𐨬				𑌵
Unicode name	BRAHMI LETTER VA		KHAROSHTHI LETTER VA		SIDDHAM LETTER VA		GRANTHA LETTER VA
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	69679	U+1102F	68140	U+10A2C	71082	U+115AA	70453	U+11335
UTF-8	240 145 128 175	F0 91 80 AF	240 144 168 172	F0 90 A8 AC	240 145 150 170	F0 91 96 AA	240 145 140 181	F0 91 8C B5
UTF-16	55300 56367	D804 DC2F	55298 56876	D802 DE2C	55301 56746	D805 DDAA	55300 57141	D804 DF35
Numeric character reference	𑀯	𑀯	𐨬	𐨬	𑖪	𑖪	𑌵	𑌵

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More information Preview, 𑘪 ...

Character information

Preview	𑘪		𑧊		𑩾		ꠛ		𑵭
Unicode name	MODI LETTER VA		NANDINAGARI LETTER VA		SOYOMBO LETTER VA		SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER BO		GUNJALA GONDI LETTER VA		KAITHI LETTER VA
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	71210	U+1162A	72138	U+119CA	72318	U+11A7E	43035	U+A81B	73069	U+11D6D	69803	U+110AB
UTF-8	240 145 152 170	F0 91 98 AA	240 145 167 138	F0 91 A7 8A	240 145 169 190	F0 91 A9 BE	234 160 155	EA A0 9B	240 145 181 173	F0 91 B5 AD	240 145 130 171	F0 91 82 AB
UTF-16	55301 56874	D805 DE2A	55302 56778	D806 DDCA	55302 56958	D806 DE7E	43035	A81B	55303 56685	D807 DD6D	55300 56491	D804 DCAB
Numeric character reference	𑘪	𑘪	𑧊	𑧊	𑩾	𑩾	ꠛ	ꠛ	𑵭	𑵭	𑂫	𑂫

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