h after t and d in S. Indian transliterations

[Rajesh Kochhar]

Devanagari script has four sounds; t  dot,th dot: t,th.If you wish to write
Indian words without using diacritics, you must do with only two Roman
combinations: t and th.Hindi does away with distiction between  t and t
dot.,e,g, t serves different purposes in tota (parrot) and chattan
(rock).Similarly th and th dot are seved by th...South indian languages ,on
the other hand, distinguish between t and t dot by using t and th
respectively. They do not need sybols for th as in thali, and so on.

Prof Rajesh Kochhar
Director
National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies
Pusa Gate , K S Krishnan Marg , New Delhi 110012
ph + 91 11  5764064 / 5743227   fax 5754640
altenative email rkochhar2000 at yahoo.com
web site  http://nistads.res.in
-----Original Message-----
From: Allen W Thrasher <athr at LOC.GOV>
To: INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK <INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK>
Date: Friday, June 16, 2000 7:58 PM
Subject: h after t and d in S. Indian transliterations


>I notice that South Indian publications when using Anglicisations or
>informal Romanizations of Sanskrit terms often add h after d dental
>and possibly t dental.  Why is this?  Could it be that since English t
>and d are alveolar rather than really dental and so are in between
>Indic dentals and retroflexes, the h brings the tongue forward against
>the teeth and so to the Dravidian speaker represents a dental better,
>whereas an English dental would sound closer to a retroflex?
>
>Allen Thrasher
>
>
>
>Allen W. Thrasher, Ph.D.
>
>Senior Reference Librarian       101 Indendence Ave., SE
>Southern Asia Section               LJ-150
>Asian Division                            Washington, DC 20540-4810
>Library of Congress                     U.S.A.
>tel. 202-707-3732                       fax 202-707-1724
>Email: athr at loc.gov
>
>The opinions expressed do not necessarily represent those of the
>Library of Congress.