Cha (Indic)

Cha, represented by the Devanagari character च, is the fifth consonant of the Devanagari script and a corresponding consonant in other Indic scripts derived from Brahmi, such as Bengali, Gujarati, and Tamil. It represents a voiceless palatal plosive, transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as /tʃ/.

Its position in the Devanagari varnamala (alphabet) places it within the ch वर्ग (ca varga), the group of consonants sharing a similar place of articulation (palatal). The ch वर्ग includes the letters cha (च), chha (छ), ja (ज), jha (झ), and ña (ञ).

The sound represented by cha is often transliterated as "ca" using IAST (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration). However, the IPA symbol /tʃ/ more accurately reflects the pronunciation, which is similar to the "ch" in the English word "church."

In various Indic languages, the frequency of the cha consonant varies, but it is generally a relatively common consonant. Its articulation remains consistent across most of these languages.

The numerical value assigned to cha in the Katapayadi system, a numerical notation system used in ancient India, is 6.