Ai
Example glyphs
Bengali-Assamese
Tamil
Thai	ไ
Malayalam	ഐ
Sinhala	ඓ
Ashoka Brahmi
Devanagari
Cognates
Hebrew	ע
Greek	Ο, Ω
Latin	O
Cyrillic	О, Ѡ, Ѿ, Ꙋ, Ю
Properties
Phonemic representation	/ɐi/ /ɔi/ /ɛː/
IAST transliteration	ai Ai
ISCII code point	AD (173)

Ai is a vowel of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, Ai is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter . As an Indic vowel, Ai comes in two normally distinct forms: 1) as an independent letter, and 2) as a vowel sign for modifying a base consonant. Bare consonants without a modifying vowel sign have the inherent "A" vowel.

Āryabhaṭa numeration

Aryabhata used Devanagari letters for numbers, very similar to the Greek numerals, even after the invention of Indian numerals. The ै sign was used to modify a consonant's value ×10¹², but the vowel letter ऐ did not have an inherent value by itself.^[1]

Historic Ai

There are three different general early historic scripts - Brahmi and its variants, Kharoṣṭhī, and Tocharian, the so-called slanting Brahmi. Ai as found in standard Brahmi, was a simple geometric shape, and retained the same basic form into later styles of Brahmi. Like all Brahmic scripts, Tocharian Ai has an accompanying vowel mark for modifying a base consonant. In Kharoṣṭhī, the only independent vowel letter is for the inherent A. All other independent vowels, including Ai are indicated with vowel marks added to the letter A.

Brahmi Ai

The Brahmi letter Ai , is probably derived from the altered Aramaic Ayin , and is thus related to the modern Latin O and Greek Omicron.^[2] Several identifiable styles of writing the Brahmi Ai can be found, most associated with a specific set of inscriptions from an artifact or diverse records from an historic period.^[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 some vowel marks not attested until later forms of Brahmi back-formed to match the geometric writing style.

Brahmi Ai historic forms

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

Tocharian Ai

The Tocharian letter is derived from the Brahmi . Unlike some of the consonants, Tocharian vowels do not have a Fremdzeichen form.

Tocharian consonants with Ai vowel marks

Kai	Khai	Gai	Ghai	Cai	Chai	Jai	Jhai	Nyai	Ṭai	Ṭhai	Ḍai	Ḍhai	Ṇai
Tai	Thai	Dai	Dhai	Nai	Pai	Phai	Bai	Bhai	Mai	Yai	Rai	Lai	Vai
Śai	Ṣai	Sai	Hai

Devanagari Ai

Devanagari independent Ai and Ai vowel sign.

Ai (ऐ) is a vowel of the Devanagari abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter . Letters that derive from it are the Gujarati letter ઐ, and the Modi letter 𑘋.

Bengali Ai

Bengali independent Ai and Ai vowel sign.

Ai (ঐ) is a vowel of the Bengali abugida. It is derived from the Siddhaṃ letter , and is marked by the lack of horizontal head line and less geometric shape than its Devanagari counterpart, ऐ.

Gujarati Ai

Gujarati independent Ai and Ai vowel sign.

Ai (ઐ) is a vowel of the Gujarati abugida. It is derived from the Devanagari Ai , and ultimately the Brahmi letter .

Javanese Ai

Telugu Ai

Telugu independent vowel and vowel sign Ai.

Ai (ఐ) is a vowel of the Telugu abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter . It is closely related to the Kannada letter ಐ. Like in other Indic scripts, Telugu vowels have two forms: and independent letter for word and syllable-initial vowel sounds, and a vowel sign for changing the inherent "a" of Telugu consonant letters. Vowel signs in Telugu can interact with a base consonant in one of three ways: 1) the vowel sign touches or sits adjacent to the base consonant without modifying the shape of either 2) the vowel sign sits directly above the consonant, replacing its v-shaped headline, 3) the vowel sign and consonant interact, forming a ligature.

Telugu Ai vowel sign on క, ఖ, గ, ఘ & ఙ: Kai, Khai, Gai, Ghai and Ngai. Note that how the vowel sign interacts with the base consonant is dependent on the location of the headline, the absence of a headline, and the presence of a tail to attach to.

Malayalam Ai

Malayalam independent vowel and vowel sign Ai.

Ai (ഐ) is a vowel of the Malayalam abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via the Grantha letter ai. Like in other Indic scripts, Malayalam vowels have two forms: an independent letter for word and syllable-initial vowel sounds, and a vowel sign for changing the inherent "a" of consonant letters. Vowel signs in Malayalam usually sit adjacent to its base consonant - below, to the left, right, or both left and right, but are always pronounced after the consonant sound.

Odia Ai

Odia independent vowel and vowel sign Ai

Ai (ଐ) is a vowel of the Odia abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via the Siddhaṃ letter ai. Like in other Indic scripts, Odia vowels have two forms: an independent letter for word and syllable-initial vowel sounds, and a vowel sign for changing the inherent "a" of consonant letters. Vowel signs in Odia usually sit adjacent to its base consonant - below, to the left, right, or both left and right, but are always pronounced after the consonant sound. No base consonants are altered in form when adding a vowel sign, and there are no consonant+vowel ligatures in Odia.

Kaithi Ai

Kaithi independent vowel and vowel sign Ai.

Ai (𑂊) is a vowel of the Kaithi abugida. It ultimately arose from the Brahmi letter , via the Siddhaṃ letter Ai. Like in other Indic scripts, Kaithi vowels have two forms: an independent letter for word and syllable-initial vowel sounds, and a vowel sign for changing the inherent "a" of consonant letters. Vowel signs in Kaithi usually sit adjacent to its base consonant - below, to the left, right, or both left and right, but are always pronounced after the consonant sound. No base consonants are altered in form when adding a vowel sign, and there are no consonant+vowel ligatures in Kaithi.

Comparison of Ai

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

Comparison of Ai in different scripts

Aramaic Kharoṣṭhī - Ashoka Brahmi Kushana Brahmi[lower-alpha 1] 𑀐 Tocharian[lower-alpha 2] - Gupta Brahmi 𑀐 Pallava Kadamba - Bhaiksuki - Siddhaṃ Grantha 𑌐 Cham ꨄ Sinhala ඓ Pyu / Old Mon[lower-alpha 3] - Tibetan - Newa - Ahom - Malayalam ഐ Telugu ఐ Burmese ဲ Lepcha - Ranjana Saurashtra ꢎ Dives Akuru - Kannada ಐ Kayah Li - Limbu ᤤ Soyombo[lower-alpha 4] - Khmer ឰ / ៃ Tamil Chakma 𑄭 Tai Tham ᩱ / ᩲ Meitei Mayek ꫭ Gaudi - Thai ไ / ใ Lao ໄ / ໃ Tai Le ᥭ Marchen - Tirhuta 𑒌 New Tai Lue ᦶ Tai Viet ꪼ Aksara Kawi - 'Phags-pa - Odia ଐ Sharada 𑆎 Rejang ꥊ Batak - Buginese ᨛ Zanabazar Square - Bengali-Assamese Takri 𑚇 Javanese ꦍ Balinese ᬐ Makasar - Hangul[lower-alpha 5] - Northern Nagari - Dogri - Laṇḍā - Sundanese ᮆ Baybayin - Modi 𑘋 Gujarati ઐ Khojki 𑈅 Khudabadi 𑊷 Mahajani - Tagbanwa - Devanagari Nandinagari - Kaithi Gurmukhi ਐ Multani - Buhid - Canadian Syllabics[lower-alpha 6] - Soyombo[lower-alpha 7] - Sylheti Nagari - Gunjala Gondi - Masaram Gondi[lower-alpha 8] - Hanuno'o - 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.

Character encodings of Ai

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

Character information

Preview							ఐ		ଐ		ಐ		ഐ		ઐ		ਐ
Unicode name	DEVANAGARI LETTER AI		BENGALI LETTER AI		TAMIL LETTER AI		TELUGU LETTER AI		ORIYA LETTER AI		KANNADA LETTER AI		MALAYALAM LETTER AI		GUJARATI LETTER AI		GURMUKHI LETTER AI
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	2320	U+0910	2448	U+0990	2960	U+0B90	3088	U+0C10	2832	U+0B10	3216	U+0C90	3344	U+0D10	2704	U+0A90	2576	U+0A10
UTF-8	224 164 144	E0 A4 90	224 166 144	E0 A6 90	224 174 144	E0 AE 90	224 176 144	E0 B0 90	224 172 144	E0 AC 90	224 178 144	E0 B2 90	224 180 144	E0 B4 90	224 170 144	E0 AA 90	224 168 144	E0 A8 90
Numeric character reference	ऐ	ऐ	ঐ	ঐ	ஐ	ஐ	ఐ	ఐ	ଐ	ଐ	ಐ	ಐ	ഐ	ഐ	ઐ	ઐ	ਐ	ਐ
ISCII	173	AD	173	AD	173	AD	173	AD	173	AD	173	AD	173	AD	173	AD	173	AD

Character information

Preview	Ashoka Kushana Gupta				𑌐
Unicode name	BRAHMI LETTER AI		SIDDHAM LETTER AI		GRANTHA LETTER AI
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	69648	U+11010	71051	U+1158B	70416	U+11310
UTF-8	240 145 128 144	F0 91 80 90	240 145 150 139	F0 91 96 8B	240 145 140 144	F0 91 8C 90
UTF-16	55300 56336	D804 DC10	55301 56715	D805 DD8B	55300 57104	D804 DF10
Numeric character reference	𑀐	𑀐	𑖋	𑖋	𑌐	𑌐

Character information

Preview	𑘋
Unicode name	MODI LETTER AI		KAITHI LETTER AI
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	71179	U+1160B	69770	U+1108A
UTF-8	240 145 152 139	F0 91 98 8B	240 145 130 138	F0 91 82 8A
UTF-16	55301 56843	D805 DE0B	55300 56458	D804 DC8A
Numeric character reference	𑘋	𑘋	𑂊	𑂊

References