Jha (Indic)


Jha is the ninth consonant of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, jha is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter.

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 झ are:
There are three different general early historic scripts - Brahmi and its variants, Kharoṣṭhī, and Tocharian, the so-called slanting Brahmi. Jha as found in standard Brahmi, was a simple geometric shape, with variations toward more flowing forms in later times. The Tocharian Jha did not have an alterante Fremdzeichen form. There is no evidence of a Jha in the corpus of Kharoṣṭhī texts currently known.

Brahmi Jha

The Brahmi letter, Jha, is probably derived from the altered Aramaic Zayin, and is thus related to the modern Latin and Greek. A couple of identifiable styles of writing the Brahmi Jha 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
No samplesNo samplesNo samples

Tocharian Jha

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

Devanagari script

Jha is the ninth consonant of the Devanagari abugida. is a variant of झ that also in use, particularly in older texts. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter. Letters that derive from it are the Gujarati letter ઝ and the Modi letter ?.

Devanagari Ža

Ža is the character jha combined with a nuqta. It is used to transcribe the voiced patalal fricative from Urdu and English. Ža should not be confused with za, which is used to denote the voiced alveolar sibilant from Urdu, English, and other languages. Ža should also not be confused zha, which is used in Devanagari transcriptions of the Avestan letter zhe to denote the voiced post-alveolar fricative. An equivalent sound, in some Slavic languages, is ž, ż or ж.

Devanagari-using Languages

In many languages, झ is pronounced as or when appropriate. In Marathi, झ is sometimes pronounced as or in addition to or. Therefore, loanwords having /z/ use this letter for the sound in Marathi. Like all Indic scripts, Devanagari uses vowel marks attached to the base consonant to override the inherent /ə/ vowel:
JhaJhāJhiJhīJhuJhūJhrJhr̄JhlJhl̄JheJhaiJhoJhauJh
झझाझिझीझुझूझृझॄझॢझॣझेझैझोझौझ्

Conjuncts with झ

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. 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 झ

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 झ

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 ঝ is derived from the Siddhaṃ, and is marked by a similar horizontal head line, but less geometric shape, than its Devanagari counterpart, झ. The inherent vowel of Bengali consonant letters is /ɔ/, so the bare letter ঝ will sometimes be transliterated as "jho" instead of "jha". Adding okar, the "o" vowel mark, gives a reading of /d͡ʒʱo/.
Like all Indic consonants, ঝ can be modified by marks to indicate another vowel than its inherent "a".
jhajhājhijhījhujhūjhrjhr̄jhejhaijhojhaujh
ঝঝাঝিঝীঝুঝূঝৃঝৄঝেঝৈঝোঝৌঝ্

ঝ in Bengali-using languages

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

Conjuncts with ঝ

Bengali ঝ exhibits conjunct ligatures, as is common in Indic scripts, but has significantly fewer conjunct ligatures than most other Bengali letters.

Gujarati script

Jha is the ninth consonant of the Gujarati script. It is possibly derived from a variant of 16th century Devanagari letter jha with the top bar removed.

Gurmukhi script

Chajaa is the fourteenth letter of the Gurmukhi alphabet. Its name is and pronounced as /t͡ʃə̀/. To differentiate between consonants, the Punjabi tonal consonant t͡ʃə̀ is often transliterated in the way of the Hindi voiced aspirate consonants jha although Punjabi does not have this sound. It is derived from the Laṇḍā letter jha, and ultimately from the Brahmi jha. Gurmukhi chajaa does not have a special pairin or addha form for making conjuncts, and in modern Punjabi texts do not take a half form or halant to indicate the bare consonant /t͡ʃ/, although Gurmukhi Sanskrit texts may use an explicit halant.

Burmese script

Za Myin zwe is the 19th letter of the Burmese script. Zay means bazzar. Zan means intense connection of mind.

Thai script

Cho choe is the twelfth letter of the Thai script. It falls under the low class of Thai consonants. In IPA, cho choe is pronounced as at the beginning of a syllable and may not be used to close a syllable. The eighth letter of the alphabet, cho chan, is also named cho and falls under the middle class of Thai consonants. The eighth letter of the alphabet, cho ching, is also named cho and falls under the high class of Thai consonants. The tenth letter of the alphabet, cho chang, is also named cho and falls under the low class of Thai consonants. Unlike many Indic scripts, 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, choe means ‘tree’. Cho choe corresponds to the Sanskrit character ‘झ’.