Ahom Letter Ba

The Ahom ba letter 𑜈 is read as ba in modern Tai Ahom. Ahom is an abugida: a consonant letter carries a built-in vowel, while added vowel signs or a virama—a mark that cancels that vowel—change the syllable. Read the letter with its marks and word; by itself, it is a letter, not a whole word.

Ahom writing predates Unicode. The script may have reached Assam from Mau Long; very similar stone inscriptions also appear in Yunnan. The oldest surviving Ahom text identified is the Snake Pillar inscription for King Siuw Hum Miung (1497–1539).

Ahom writing served royal records, chronicles, ritual texts, and dictionaries. A Buranji, an Ahom chronicle, records a king’s death and succession and opens with a prayer; the British Library catalog dates the manuscript to 1754–55 or 1814–15.

Why can old Ahom writing be hard to read?

A manuscript’s context may be needed to recover its reading. Older Ahom spelling may leave vowel length, vowel quality, or tone unclear, so readers use the surrounding word and passage.

Modern Ahom reads this letter as ba; older usage could correspond to wa, beginning with a w-like glide. Tai Ahom later gave way to Assamese as an everyday language, and the script returned through dictionaries, teaching, print, and digital text. Read a teaching text by modern conventions; check a manuscript transcription against its source period.

Why is 𑜈 written below Ta in one manuscript?

That placement can follow a manuscript convention. In one manuscript example, Ba follows Ta in reading order but is written below it. The position does not change which character the reader is decoding.