Ā is a vowel of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, Aa is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter . As an Indic vowel, "Ā" 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 short "A" vowel.