[INDOLOGY] A distraction from the Coronavirus

[Robert Zydenbos]

On 2020-04-05 22:33, Madhav Deshpande via INDOLOGY wrote:

> [...]  Just looking at Hindi, the three gendered words of Sanskrit get 
> redistributed to two genders.  While Marathi has three genders like 
> Sanskrit, the genders of words often change in Marathi.  Words like 
> _svapna _and _vighna _that are masculine in Sanskrit become neuter in 
> Marathi.  The Marathi users of Sanskrit will instinctively use these 
> words in neuter, till they are corrected by a learned pandit.  मेरी 
> आत्मा of Hindi has always shocked me as a Marathi speaker.

मॆरी आत्मा? Shocking. Is this because Hindi is actually, 'under the 
hood', so to speak, Urdu, and the corresponding Persian or Arabic word 
is feminine? I am reminded of a horror like मॆरी पुस्तक, where 'पुस्तक' 
is feminine because किताब is feminine.

RZ


-- 
Prof. Dr. Robert J. Zydenbos
Institute of Indology and Tibetology
Department of Asian Studies
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (University of Munich – LMU)
Germany