INDOLOGY FAQ. Re. Varanasi

[Dominik Wujastyk]

On 15 February 2010 22:45, george thompson <gthomgt at comcast.net> wrote:

I agree about publishers, George.  Like many on this list, I'm sure, I've
had my share of arguments with publishers about accents.  I've found it
helpful to draw an analogy with French or German.  It wouldn't be acceptable
to print those languages without their accents, and nor is it acceptable for
Sanskrit.

You said,

> I would also like to complain about a decision that was made by the editors
> of the Clay Sanskrit Library.  This is a great and valuable collection of
> translations, but I think that they made a bad decision when they chose to
> ignore diacritic marks in their translatons.
>

There's lots to discuss about the various Clay decisions, but one thing I
quite like is the use of the acute accent to mark stress or ictus.  While
ictus isn't the same as vowel length, it's pretty close to gauravam, and
people who know nothing of Sanskrit and don't have access to a teacher do
rather well reading such accented words out loud.

Best,
Dominik