m/anusvAra & s/visarga

DEVARAKONDA VENKATA NARAYANA SARMA narayana at HD1.VSNL.NET.IN
Wed Nov 5 00:24:33 UTC 1997


At 06:35 PM 11/4/97 +0100, you wrote:
>I wrote yesterday:
>
>>Since I do a lot of ASCII input and typing <H> and <M>
>>is a pain in the neck. I want to use in <s> for <H> (visarga)
>>(or if it comes before a sibilant, that sibilant)
>>and <m> for <M>. But before going ahead I want to be
>>fairly sure I will always be able to restaure things
>>from the context when I need to.
>>
>>For anusvAra I am 100% sure but I'd thought I'd mention
>>it so as to make 101% sure.
>
>Well maybe I _shouldn't_ have been so sure! The problem was
>to make certain that I couldn't find the following sequences
>in any Sanskrit word:
>
>                     mk, mkh, mg, mgh, mG
>                     mc, mch, mj, mjh, mJ
>                     mT, mTh, mD, mDh, mN
>                     mt, mth, md, mdh, mn
>                     my, mr,  ml, mv
>                     mz, mS,  ms,
>                     mh.
>
>Today, with my eyesight somewhat improved, I checked a list
>of conjuncts, and sure enough I find, <gasp>, conjuncts for
>sequences mna, mya, mra, mla, mva!
>
>So now I'd like to ask, _are_ there any Sanskrit words where
>             mna,     mya, mra, mla, mva
>are pronounced with a full, real m, and are opposed to other
>words with sequences
>             Mna/nna, Mra, Mya, Mla, Mva
>or are those conjuncts only used for orthographic variants?
>
>In other words,
>when one sees                mna,     mya, mra, mla, mva
>may one always spell it      Mna/nna, Mya, Mra, Mla, Mva
>or not? (And if not, are forms with mn, my, ... nevertheless
>fairly rare?)
>
>(Well, I'm not optimistic, but you see it's not easy to give
>up such a convenient idea :)
>
>

nimna, pradyumna, mahimna, soumya, zAmyati( may be some other verbs of
divAdi gaNa), kamra.

sarma.





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