Sanskrit tongue-twister

[Walter Slaje]

For an interpretation of this passage
(Kiraat. 15,14), see S. Lienhard (A
History of Classical Poetry, Skt, Pali,
Pkt) Wiesbaden 1984: 158.

WS


 "Alex Passi"
<mailto:a.passi at ALMA.UNIBO.IT> schrieb:
> Dear List-Members,
> 
> I just received a query from a retired journalist, re. the purpoted  
> Skt. sequence
> "nanonanunnonunnono",
> which is supposed to translate as: "the lesser should not try to  
> compete with the greater".
> The best I could do with it, without diacritics, is more or less  
> nonsense: "He who is indeed wet for us is not un-wet for us" (na no  
> nanu +unno 'nunno no[=na.h). ;-)
> It's possible that the text was transmitted garbled -- perhaps the  
> adjective ^una fit in the original somewhere.
> I'm quite stumped, though the passage sounds somewhat familiar. Does  
> anyone have any ideas?
> 
> Alex (Alessandro) Passi,
> Dipartimento Studi Linguistici
> e Orientali
> Università di Bologna,
> Via Zamboni 33
> Bologna, 40126, Italy.
> 
> mailto:a.passi at alma.unibo.it
> mailto:alexpassi at gmail.com
> +39-051-209.8472
> cellphone +39-338.269.4933
> fax +39-051-209.8443.
> 
  
------------------------------- 
Prof. Dr. Walter Slaje
Hermann-Loens-Str. 1
D-99425 Weimar (Germany)
Tel/Fax: +49-(0)3643 501391
www.indologie.uni-halle.de

Ego ex animi mei sententia spondeo ac
polliceor
me studia humanitatis impigro labore
culturum et provecturum
non sordidi lucri causa nec ad vanam
captandam gloriam,
sed quo magis veritas propagetur et lux
eius, qua salus
humani generis continetur, clarius
effulgeat.
Vindobonae, die XXI. mensis Novembris
MCMLXXXIII.