Sanskrit song by a Chinese singer

[Dominic Goodall]

It's rather easier if you start with this one, since it has subtitles  
(the pronunciation and transliteration knock all the variants of  
Benares into a cocked hat !)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-W84T_lMNY&feature=related



On 17 Feb 2010, at 19:41, Deshpande, Madhav wrote:

> While we are on pronunciation of Sanskrit, someone sent me the  
> Youtube link for a Sanskrit song sung by a Chinese pop-singer.  Here  
> is the link:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvQf4JIimzM
>
> I would appreciate if someone can figure out the Sanskrit words/ 
> sounds she is singing.  The first word seems to be something like  
> "namaḥ".  Best
>
> Madhav
>
> Madhav M. Deshpande
> Professor of Sanskrit and Linguistics
> Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
> 202 South Thayer Street, Suite 6111
> The University of Michigan
> Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104-1608, USA
> ________________________________________
> From: Indology [INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Gary Tubb [tubb at UCHICAGO.EDU 
> ]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2010 9:06 AM
> To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: INDOLOGY FAQ. Re. Varanasi
>
> Dominik, we may be dealing here with, more precisely, English word
> rhythm choices earmarked for attacking foreign words.  In speaking to
> earlier generations of students, I used to call this the "Art Fleming
> syndrome."  Art Fleming was the host of the television quiz show
> "Jeopardy" throughout most of the '60's and '70's, and among his many
> charms was the notorious practice of pronouncing every unfamiliar
> foreign word as if it were Spanish (actually Spanish with an American
> English accent, which would have him pronounce words like Ramayana and
> Mahabharata with the stress on the penultimate syllable, but with a
> non-Spanish reduction of the preceding vowel).  Mr. Fleming did this
> with such confidence (following the advice of another great American
> showman, P.T. Barnum: "If you don't know how to pronounce a word,  
> say it
> LOUD") that he probably helped millions feel reassured in indulging  
> the
> same instinct.
>
> What causes speakers of North Indian languages such as Hindi to make a
> similar shift in some English place names, such as "amriikaa" for
> "America"?  Has Portuguese or some other language intervened in the
> history of this word?
>
> --G.
>
> Dominik Wujastyk wrote:
>> Some notes on English word stress rules:
>>
>> http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/word-stress-rules.htm
>>
>>
>> D
>>