Dear Martin,

> in NW Indo-Aryan, old kṣ developed into a new phoneme, a
> retroflex affricate ṭṣh, and I have long been wondering if this
> might be one factor relevant for the special status of this
> akṣara

indirectly I think it was. The Kharoṣṭhī script uses a basic,
non-compositional sign for [ʈʂʰ] (𐨐𐨿𐨮 – this may not be rendered
correctly on all computers), and the sign for the palatal aspirate
affricate ch [ʨʰ] (𐨖) is in fact derived from the retroflex one.

Even though the (later?) Brāhmī script does not follow Kharoṣṭhī
in this and composes kṣ from k + ṣ, a memory of the (earlier?)
special status of kṣ appears to have suevived in its position. The
same may also be true for jñ at the end of the alphabet, which
etymologially corresponds to simple ñ [ɲ] (𐨙) in Kharoṣṭhī as used
for Gāndhārī.

All best,
Stefan

--
Stefan Baums, Ph.D.
Institut für Indologie und Tibetologie
Ludwig‐Maximilians‐Universität München

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