Pronunciation of word final "a" in sanskrit

[Swaminathan Madhuresan]

I was wondering about the same. Does this have anything to
with the Nagari script? Not only the word final "a"s,
sometimes even internal "a"s are sometimes shortened,
though not to the extent of final "a"s.

In the South, the word final "a" is pronounced as full.


--- Harry Spier <harryspier at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
> Dear Sanskritists,
>
> A Gujerati friend who learnt sanskrit in high school in India pronounces
> word final short "a" so short as to be almost imperceptable.  In the modern
> grammars written in english short "a" is distinguished from long "a" both in
> quality and length but I don't see any mention that short "a" is pronounced
> any differently when word final than when word internal.  Is there any
> mention in the sanskrit grammatical treatises of a different pronunciation
> of short "a" when word final than when word internal?  If anyone knows the
> answer but doesn't want to start another long discussion about whats proper
> sanskrit pronunciation then if they could drop me a short private note it
> would be greatly appreciated.
>
>
> Thanks in Advance,
>
> Harry Spier
>
>
> _______________________________________________________________
> Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
>

_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com