FW: [INDOLOGY] order of letters

[Herman Tull]

Dear Prof. Deshpande:
Thank you for this information; it is extremely helpful.  Most modern 
grammars simply ignore this.
Herman Tull

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From: "Deshpande, Madhav" <mmdesh at UMICH.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2010 11:26 AM
To: <INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk>
Subject: [INDOLOGY] FW: [INDOLOGY] order of letters

> Dear Colleagues,
>
> Even the great Panini did not include the sounds (anusvāra, visarga, 
> jihvāmūlīya, upadhmānīya and the so-called yamas) in his Śivasūtras.  They 
> are called ayogavāha sounds.  The tradition incorporates them in two 
> places in the Śivasūtras (so that they can be included in the two separate 
> pratyāhāras: aṭ and śal).  The jihvāmūlīya and upadhmānīya are lost in 
> most common writing forms, and are expressly lost in some Vedic schools 
> like the Mādhyandina Yajurveda.  The two surviving sounds, the anusvāra 
> and visarga are conventionally accommodated at the end of vowels and 
> represented as aṃ and aḥ.   This lack of a fixed location for these sounds 
> has created a free-for-all pattern in modern dictionaries.
>
> Madhav M. Deshpande
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Indology [INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Elena Bashir 
> [ebashir at UCHICAGO.EDU]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2010 10:02 AM
> To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] order of letters
>
> This would seem to be an important issue for electronic dictionaries -
> in connection sorting and searching.
>
>
> On 5/19/2010 8:38 AM, Herman Tull wrote:
>> I am putting together some simple rules for first year students.  In
>> dealing with the order of the letters, there is the ever present
>> confusion over the placement of anusvAra and visarga.  I notice that
>> Monier Williams and Macdonell are consistent in their placement of the
>> anusvara (placing it after the vowels when it precedes the semi-vowels
>> or the sibilants).  But, they seem not to agree on the placement of
>> the visarga.  Macdonell follows the rule that he states in his student
>> grammar (p. 3), that the visarga follows the vowels when it precedes
>> "k" and "p" and that it when it precedes a sibilant it is placed in
>> the consonantal order of the sibilants.  E.g., on p. 17 of his
>> dictionary he has an article for antaH-ka... and then on p. 18 he has
>> the article for antaH-sa...
>>
>> Monier-Williams, on the other hand, combines this all into one article
>> (p. 43, "antaH"), and so does not distinguish between visarga before
>> "k" and "p" on the one hand, and before the sibilants on the other,
>> treating all of it as if it precedes "antar" (which seems incorrect,
>> since antaH-sa would not precede antar according to the rule).
>>
>> A small matter (especially with the advent of the electronic
>> dictionary), perhaps, but can anyone shed light on this?
>>
>> Herman Tull
>
> --
> E. Bashir, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer in Urdu
> Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations
> The University of Chicago, Foster 212
> 1130 E. 59th St.
> Chicago, IL 60637
> Phone:  773-702-8632
> Fax:    773-834-3254
>