[INDOLOGY] Examples of very ambiguous devanagari Sanskrit sentences

[Lubomir Ondracka]

RV 8.100.11d: súṣṭutaítu

1. súṣṭutā etu  "may she [the goddess Speech], meetly lauded, go away"
2. súṣṭutā ā́ etu "may she, meetly lauded, come [to us]"

(Filliozat, Sanskrit Language, p. 19)

LO


On Sun, 8 Feb 2015 15:09:57 -0500
Harry Spier <hspier.muktabodha at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for these replies.
> 
> What will help me the most is some very simple Sanskrit phrases that
> show  completely different meanings by how you put breaks in the
> transliteration.  I need to show examples of this to non-sanskritist,
> non-devanagari knowing typesetters.
> 
> The best I could come up with is:
> 
> पुष्पमध्येति स्मरति च
> 
> which can be:
> 
> puṣpam adhyeti smarati ca He turns his mind towards the lotus and remembers
> it.
> 
> or
> puṣpa-madhyeti smarati ca = puṣpa-madhya iti smarati ca = He  remembers  [the
> phrase] "the middle of the lotus"
> 
> More examples like this would be useful.
> 
> Thanks,
> Harry Spier
> 
> On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 1:40 PM, Lubomir Ondracka <ondracka at ff.cuni.cz>
> wrote:
> 
> > See Yigal Bronner's book on śleṣa (Extreme Poetry: The South Asian
> > Movement of Simultaneous Narration, Columbia UP 2010). Nice example using
> > two ways of splitting sandhi leading to very different meanings is on page
> > 101. You will probably find more examples in this book.
> >
> > Lubomír Ondračka
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, 8 Feb 2015 12:15:17 -0500
> > Harry Spier <hspier.muktabodha at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Dear list members,
> > >
> > > I need to show to some non-sanskritists that given a Sanskrit phrase in
> > > devanagari, that how you put in the word breaks in the transliteration
> > can
> > > result in phrases with very different meanings.
> > >
> > > Can any of the list members give examples of short sentences in simple
> > > sanskrit in devanagari that when the words are split  differently in the
> > > transliteration give grammatically correct Sanskrit sentences but produce
> > > Sanskrit phrases with  "radically" different meanings.
> > >
> > > For my purposes simple Sanskrit sentences are better than more
> > complicated
> > > Sanskrit from the literature.  And sentences that give very different
> > > meanings depending on how the words are broken up are better than more
> > > subtle differences.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Harry Spier
> >