Voiced aspirate consonants and neighing (or other animal cries)

[Peter M. Scharf]

Sanskrit grammarians do use animal sounds as analogies to speech
sounds.  Though it may have been an explanation provided by a modern
traditional teacher (I cannot find the references at present in a
quick glance through the commentaries), one explanation of the use of
the vowels 'u U 3u' under Pa 1.2.27 UkAlo 'jjhrasvadIrghaplutaH to
explain the three durations of vowels in Sanskrit is that it imitates
the crowing of the rooster.
Sincerely,
Peter Scharf

>Was the 13th century Tamil Scholar
>(also proficient in Sanskrit)
>who explained to his tamil students
>the pronunciation of gh, jh, etc.
>by using as a specifier
>a verb usually used
>for animal cries
>simply routinely translating into Tamil
>an ordinary sanskrit metaphor?
>
>If the answer is yes,
>can you provide references?
>
>Thanks for your attention
>
>Best wishes
>
>-- Dr. Jean-Luc Chevillard
>  (CNRS, University Paris 7,
>History of Linguistics Research Team [UMR 7597, HTL])

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