[INDOLOGY] The alphabet found in the Lalitavistara

[Madhav Deshpande]

Thanks everyone for a stimulating discussion.  Very informative.  Best,

Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies

[Residence: Campbell, California, USA]


On Sat, Nov 2, 2019 at 6:30 AM Stefan Baums via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Dear Martin,
>
> > in NW Indo-Aryan, old kṣ developed into a new phoneme, a
> > retroflex affricate ṭṣh, and I have long been wondering if this
> > might be one factor relevant for the special status of this
> > akṣara
>
> indirectly I think it was. The Kharoṣṭhī script uses a basic,
> non-compositional sign for [ʈʂʰ] (𐨐𐨿𐨮 – this may not be rendered
> correctly on all computers), and the sign for the palatal aspirate
> affricate ch [ʨʰ] (𐨖) is in fact derived from the retroflex one.
>
> Even though the (later?) Brāhmī script does not follow Kharoṣṭhī
> in this and composes kṣ from k + ṣ, a memory of the (earlier?)
> special status of kṣ appears to have suevived in its position. The
> same may also be true for jñ at the end of the alphabet, which
> etymologially corresponds to simple ñ [ɲ] (𐨙) in Kharoṣṭhī as used
> for Gāndhārī.
>
> All best,
> Stefan
>
> --
> Stefan Baums, Ph.D.
> Institut für Indologie und Tibetologie
> Ludwig‐Maximilians‐Universität München
>
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