[INDOLOGY] Examples of very ambiguous devanagari Sanskrit sentences

[Harry Spier]

Thank you to
Patrick Olivelle, Gerard Huet, Lubomir Ondracka, Rein Ende,Matthew
Kapstein, Martin Gansten, Antonia Ruppel, Elliot Stern, Madhav Deshpande,
Dipak Bhattacharya, Dhaval Patel, Tim Cahill, Dermot Killingley, C.A.
Formigatti,

For the very informative and erudite answers

Harry Spier


On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 3:02 PM, Elliot Stern <emstern at verizon.net> wrote:

> Dear Dermot,
>
> You are of course right that my response was not on target. Some of the
> earlier responses led me away from the specific focus of your question.
>
> I don’t see, however, that Martin Gansten’s response met your requirement:
>
> sa mene na and sam enena are distinct in the usual roman transcription,
> but they are also distinct in the usual printed devanagari:
>
>
> स मेने न        समेनेन
>
> In case your system doesn’t read this devanagari, here is the same as
> transcribed into roman:
>
> sa mene na           samenena
>
> Cheers!
>
> Elliot
>
> Elliot M. Stern
> 552 South 48th Street
> Philadelphia, PA 19143-2029
> United States of America
> telephone: 215-747-6204
> mobile: 267-240-8418
> emstern at verizon.net
>
> On 09 Feb  2015, at 09:34, dermot at grevatt.force9.co.uk wrote:
>
> Dear Elliott,
>
> Thank you for your contribution below. But that example (´sveto) is
> ambiguous whether you
> write it in roman or devanagari. The original request was for sentences
> that are ambiguous in
> devanagari but not in roman. Martin Gansten's example from BU 4.3.1, sa
> mene na / sam
> enena, fulfils the requirement, because the space between sa and mene can
> be written in
> roman though not in devanagari. But Matthew Kapstein's example
> ekonAviMzati / eko nA
> viMzati doesn't fulfil the requirement, because the spaces can be written
> in devanagari as
> well as in roman.
>
> I notice that you follow the practice of only writing spaces in roman
> where they are possible in
> devanagari, e.g.  dhavatityekasmadeva rather than  dhavatity ekasmad eva.
> As far as I know
> this is a fairly recent practice; the older practice is to write spaces in
> roman where they are
> possible--that is, wherever a letter doesn't belong to two words because
> of sandhi. I have
> sometimes been rebuked for following this practice, on the grounds that I
> should transcribe
> the devanagari exactly. But the practice of writing spaces in devanagari
> is itself relatively
> recent. I haven't any firm evidence, but I understand it came in with
> printing, around 1800. So
> the demand to write spaces in roman only where they would be written in
> devanagari is not
> supported by ancient tradition. The rule for both is the same: write
> spaces where you can.
>
> This means that in devanagari, though less often than in roman, editors of
> texts make
> judgments which guide the reader to one or other way of understanding the
> utterance: e.g. sa
> mene na or sam enena in BU 4.3.1. This is not a matter of variants in the
> text itself, but only
> two ways of interpreting it, since the text is neither of the above, but
> only samenena.
>
> If anyone can help with more precise observations, I'd be grateful.
>
> Dermot Killingley
>
> On 8 Feb 2015 at 16:40, Elliot Stern wrote:
>
> Here's an example as explained in nyayakaika:
>
> yatha ´sveto dhavatityekasmadeva vakyadarthadvayamavagamyate ´suklo
> nirektiti ca
> kauleyaka ito druta gacchatiti ca
>
>
>
> Elliot M. Stern
> 552 South 48th Street
> Philadelphia, PA 19143-2029
> United States of America
> telephone: 215-747-6204
> mobile: 267-240-8418
> emstern at verizon.net
>
>
>    On 08 Feb 2015, at 15:25, Matthew Kapstein <mkapstei at uchicago.edu>
> wrote:
>
>    well, there's always the famous prahelikaa verse:
>    ekona vi´sati stria  snanartha sarayu gata |  vi´sati pratiyata ca eko
>    vyaghrea bhakita
>
>    where it all changes if you read:
>    eko  na
>
>    Matthew
>
>    Matthew Kapstein
>    Directeur d'études,
>    Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
>
>    Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
>    The University of Chicago
>
>
>    _______________________________________________
>    INDOLOGY mailing list
>    INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>    http://listinfo.indology.info
>
>
> --
> Dermot Killingley
> 9, Rectory Drive,
> Gosforth,
> Newcastle upon Tyne NE3 1XT
> Phone (0191) 285 8053
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> http://listinfo.indology.info
>


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20150211/2e14fd72/attachment.htm>