`real' Sanskrit vs `conversational' Sanskrit

[Chandan Raghava Narayan]

In addition to Prof. Deshpande's observations, I have also noticed a
"North Indian" pronunciation of ai as different from the "Dravida"
pronunciation. But here I observe something different than Prof.
Deshpande... I have noticed the word jaina pronounced "jane". (We
"Dravidians" tend to give the dipthong its full pronunciation)
cheers, Chandan Narayan.




On Fri, 18 Apr 1997, Madhav Deshpande wrote:

> 	The basic distinction seems to be between north and south Indian
> pronunciation.  The south Indian pronunciation handles these as sequences
> of a short 'a' followed by i/y or u/v.  This is what makes a word like
> vaiyaakara.na indistinguishable from vayyaakara.na.  This is evidenced by
> errors in the manuscripts of this kind.  In the Hindi speaking area, these
> are pronounced often as ae and ao, similar to vowels in the English words
> 'at' and 'mall'.  Thus the word 'maithi(la)' in north Indian pronunciation
> often sounds like 'Kathy'.  These differences also become evident when for
> instance a south Indian person speaks Hindi.  In these respects, the
> pronunciation of the Maharashtrian Sanskrit users is more like their
> southern neighbors (though in terms of the current political trends in
> Maharashtra, we do not like to admit that We the Aryans have anything to
> do with our Dravidian neighbors to the south!).
> 		Madhav Deshpande
> On Fri, 18 Apr 1997, Richard Barz wrote:
> 
> > I've been away and am late in the conversational Sanskrit discussion so I'm
> > sorry if my question has already been dealt with, but I'd very much like to
> > hear from Sanskritists familiar with the current Sanskrit pronunciation in
> > various parts of India how the vowels "ai" and "au" are pronounced in the
> > different areas.
> > 
> > Richard Barz
> > Richard.Barz at anu.edu.au
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
>