Ja (Indic)

← Cha	Ja			Jha →
Devanagari	Bengali	Gurmukhi	Gujarati	Oriya
Ja	Ja	ਜ	જ	Ja
Tamil	Telugu	Kannada	Malayalam	Sinhala
ஜ	జ	ಜ	ജ	ඡ
Thai	Lao	Tibetan	Burmese	Khmer
ช ซ	ຊ	ཇ ཛ	ဇ	ជ
Baybayin	Hanunoo	Buhid	Tagbanwa	Lontara
-	-	-	-	ᨍ
Balinese	Sundanese	Limbu	Tai Le	New Tai Lue
ᬚ	ᮏ	ᤈ	ᥗ	ᦋ ᦌ
Lepcha	Saurashtra	Rejang	Javanese	Cham
ᰈ	ꢙ	ꤺ	ꦗ	ꨎ
Tai Tham	Tai Viet	Kayah Li	Phags-pa	Siddhaṃ
ᨩ ᨪ	--	-	ꡆ ꡒ
Mahajani	Khojki	Khudabadi	Syloti	Meitei
𑅛	𑈐 𑈑	𑋂 𑋃	ꠎ	ꯖ
Modi	Tirhuta	Kaithi	Sora	Grantha
𑘕	𑒖	𑂔	𑃠	𑌜
Chakma	Sharada	Takri	Kharoshthi	Brahmi
𑄎	𑆘	𑚑	𐨗
Phonemic representation:			/d͡ʒ/
IAST transliteration:			ja
ISCII code point:			BA (186)

Ja is the eighth consonant of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, ja is derived from the Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter .

Āryabhaṭa numeration

Further information: Āryabhaṭa numeration

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 ज are:

• ज [d͡ʒə] = 8 (८)
• जि [d͡ʒɪ] = 800 (८००)
• जु [d͡ʒʊ] = 80,000 (८० ०००)
• जृ [d͡ʒri] = 8,000,000 (८० ०० ०००)
• जॢ [d͡ʒlə] = 8×10⁸ (८०^८)
• जे [d͡ʒe] = 8×10¹⁰ (८०^१०)
• जै [d͡ʒɛː] = 8×10¹² (८०^१२)
• जो [d͡ʒoː] = 8×10¹⁴ (८०^१४)
• जौ [d͡ʒɔː] = 8×10¹⁶ (८०^१६)

Devanagari script

Ja (ज) is the eighth consonant of the Devanagari abugida. In many languages, ज is pronounced as [d͡ʒə] or [d͡ʒ] when appropriate. In Marathi, ज is sometimes pronounced as [d͡zə] or [d͡z] in addition to [d͡ʒə] or [d͡ʒ]. Letters that derive from it are the Gujarati letter જ and Modi letter 𑘕.

Devanagari Jja

Jja (ॼ) is the character ज with an underbar to represent the voiced palatal implosive [ʄ] that occurs in Sindhi. This underbar is distinct from the Devanagari stress sign anudātta. The underbar is fused to the stem of the letter while the anudātta is a stress accent applied to the entire syllable. This underbar used for Sindhi implosives does not exist as a separate character in Unicode. When the ु or ू vowel sign is applied to jja (ॼ), the ु and ू vowel signs are drawn beneath jja. When the उ ( ु) vowel sign or ऊ ( ू) vowel sign is applied to ja with an anudātta (ज॒), the उ ( ु) vowel sign or ऊ ( ू) vowel sign is first placed under ja (ज) and then the anudātta is placed underneath the उ ( ु) vowel sign or ऊ ( ू) vowel sign.

Character Name	उ ( ु) vowel sign	ऊ ( ू) vowel sign
ॼ (Implosive ja)	ॼु	ॼू
ज॒ (Ja with anudātta)	जु॒	जू॒

An example of a Sindhi word that uses jja (ॼ) is ॼाण (ڄاڻَ), which is of the feminine grammatical gender and means information or knowledge.

Devanagari Za

Za (ज़) is the character ज with a single dot underneath. It is used in Devanagari transcriptions of Urdu, English, and other languages to denote the voiced alveolar sibilant [z]. Za (ज़) should not be confused with ža (झ़), which is the character jha (झ) combined with a nuqta, and is used to transcribe the voiced post-alveolar fricative [ʒ] from Urdu (ژ) and English. Za (ज़) should also not be confused zha (ॹ), which is used in Devanagari transcriptions of the Avestan letter zhe (𐬲) to denote the voiced post-alveolar fricative [ʒ].

Devanagari Zha

Zha (ॹ) is the character ज with three dots underneath. It is used in Devanagari transcriptions of the Avestan letter zhe (𐬲) to denote the voiced patalal fricative [ʒ]. An example of its usage is in Kavasji Edulji Kanga's Avesta, yazna 41.3 to write ईॹीम्. Zha (ॹ) should not be confused with za (ज़), which is used to denote the voiced alveolar sibilant [z] from Urdu, English, and other languages. Zha (ॹ) should also not be confused with ža (झ़), which is the character jha (झ) combined with a nuqta, and is used to transcribe the voiced post-alveolar fricative [ʒ] from Urdu (ژ) and English.

Bengali script

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

Gujarati script

Ja (જ) is the eighth consonant of the Gujarati script. It is possibly derived from a variant of 16th century Devanagari letter ja (ज) with the top bar (shiro rekha) removed. Ja (જ) is visually similar to the corresponding Modi letter. When combined with certain vowels, the Gujarati Ja may assume unique forms (such as જા, જી, and જો):

J	Ja	Jā	Ji	Ju	Jū	Jr	Jr̄	Jl	Jl̄	Je	Jai	Jo	Jau
જ્	જ	જા	જિ	જી	જુ	જૂ	જૃ	જૄ	જૢ	જૣ	જૈ	જો	જૌ

Gujarati Za

Za (જ઼) is the character ja (જ) with a single dot underneath. It corresponds to the Devanagari character Za (ज़). It is also used in Gujarati transcriptions of Avestan (𐬰), Urdu (ژ), English, and other languages to denote the voiced alveolar sibilant [z].

Gujarati Zha

Ja (જ) with three dots underneath is used in Gujarati transcriptions of the Avestan letter zhe (𐬲) to denote the voiced patalal fricative [ʒ] and is analogous to the Devanagari character zha (ॹ). Proposals have been made to the Unicode Technical Committee to encode the Gujarati zha into Unicode. However, it is unclear whether to encode it as an atomic character like the Devanagari character zha (ॹ) or to encode it by introducing a triple nuqta and attaching it the Gujarati character ja (જ).

Gurmukhi script

Jajaa [d͡ʒəd͡ʒːɑ] (ਜ) is the thirteenth letter of the Gurmukhi alphabet. Its name is [d͡ʒəd͡ʒːɑ] and is pronounced as /d͡ʒ/ when used in words. It is derived from the Laṇḍā letter ja, and ultimately from the Brahmi ja. Gurmukhi jajaa does not have a special pairin or addha (reduced) form for making conjuncts, and in modern Punjabi texts do not take a half form or halant to indicate the bare consonant /d͡ʒ/, although Gurmukhi Sanskrit texts may use an explicit halant.

Thai script

Cho chang (ช) and so so (ซ) are the tenth and eleventh letters of the Thai script. They fall 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.

Cho chang

In IPA, cho chang is pronounced as [tɕʰ] at the beginning of a syllable and are pronounced as [t̚] at the end of a syllable. The previous letter of the alphabet, cho ching (ฆ), is also named cho, however, it falls under the middle class of Thai consonants. In the acrophony of the Thai script, chang (ช้าง) means ‘elephant’. Kho khai corresponds to the Sanskrit character ‘ज’.

So so

In IPA, so so is pronounced as [s] at the beginning of a syllable and are pronounced as [t̚] at the end of a syllable. In the acrophony of the Thai script, so (โซ่) means ‘chain’. Old Thai had the voiced retroflex affricate sound /dʐ/. When the Thai script was developed, cho ching was slightly modified to create distinct letter for /dʐ/, which is now known as so so. During the Old Thai period, this sound merged into the aspirated stop /tɕʰ/. This is similar to how ज is sometimes pronounced as [d͡z] in addition to [d͡ʒ] in Marathi. However, Marathi uses the same letter for both sounds while Thai split the corresponding two sounds into the separate letters cho chang and so so. In modern Thai, the voicing of /dʐ/ became lost and thus is now pronounced as [s] at the beginning of a syllable.

Javanese script

Main article: Ja (Javanese)

References

• Kurt Elfering: Die Mathematik des Aryabhata I. Text, Übersetzung aus dem Sanskrit und Kommentar. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, München, 1975, ISBN 3-7705-1326-6
• Georges Ifrah: The Universal History of Numbers. From Prehistory to the Invention of the Computer. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2000, ISBN 0-471-39340-1.
• B. L. van der Waerden: Erwachende Wissenschaft. Ägyptische, babylonische und griechische Mathematik. Birkhäuser-Verlag, Basel Stuttgart, 1966, ISBN 3-7643-0399-9