[INDOLOGY] Visualisation of Sanskrit Phonetics

[Giovanni Ciotti]

Dear Dr Ryan,

This seems to have been a matter of debate within the tradition since quite
some time; cf. Uvaṭa at *Ṛgvedaprātiśākhya* 1.1:

śikṣādibhir yat sāmānyenotsargeṇoktaṃ lakṣaṇam | yathā tāvac chikṣāyām syur
mūrdhanyā ‘ṛṭuraṣāḥ’ sāmānyena sarvaśākhāsu repho mūrdhanya ity uktaḥ |
tathānyasyāṃ śikṣāyām ‘dantamūlīyaḥ’ iti repho dantamūlīya uktaḥ | evaṃ
sarvā śikṣā varṇeṣu sthānakaraṇānupradānādi sarvāsu śākhāsu vidadhāti | na
tu niyamataḥ kasyāṃ śākhāyāṃ repho mūrdhanyaḥ kasyāṃ dantamūlīya iti | ata
etad vyavasthāpakam ārabhyate ‘dantamūlīyas tu takāravargaḥ’
‘sakārarephalakārāś ca’ ‘rephaṃ vartsyam eke’ | evam asyāṃ śākhāyāṃ
dantamūlīyo vā vartsyo vā repha ity etad avadhāritam |

In any case, one should always keep in mind that phonetics and phonology
don't really have a one-to-one correspondence.

All best,
Giovanni

Il giorno lun 27 set 2021 alle ore 02:23 Jim Ryan via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> ha scritto:

> Hello,
>
> In response to this “phonetical” thread, the question persists for me why
> vocalic ṛ and consonantal ra are considered “savarṇas” in the mūrdhanya
> series. (Siddhānta Kaumudī I.10.) Currently. In all the Sanskrit regional
> “dialects" I know of they are pronounced, in whole or part, as alveolars.
> Are we to presume that somehow these once were actually cerebals. Or… was
> Pāṇini wrong, here?
>
> Jim Ryan
>
> On Sep 26, 2021, at 11:36 AM, Madhav Deshpande via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
> Thanks, Harry, for sharing these articles. Best,
>
> Madhav
>
> Madhav M. Deshpande
> Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
> University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
> Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
> Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India
>
> [Residence: Campbell, California, USA]
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 26, 2021 at 11:26 AM Harry Spier via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>> There are two articles by SK Chatterji written 25 years apart titled "The
>> Pronounciation of Sanskrit" , same title, different articles.  I'm
>> attaching them for whoever is interested.
>> Harry Spier
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 26, 2021 at 1:28 PM Hock, Hans Henrich via INDOLOGY <
>> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear All,
>>>
>>> As I recall, the issue of how Sanskrit is pronounced in modern (i.e.
>>> early 20th-century) India is addressed in an article by Suniti Kumar
>>> Chatterji –
>>>
>>> Chatterji, Suniti Kumar. The pronunciation of Sanskrit. *Indian
>>> Linguistics*, (1961) vol. 21, pp. 61-82. Originally: *K. B. Pathak
>>> commemoration volume*, 330-349. Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute,
>>> 1934.
>>> For the ancient period, there are the Prātiśākhyas of course (the source
>>> for Allen’s and Verma’s publications; Vidhata Mishra largely repeats
>>> Verma). On the earliest recoverable pronunciation of syllabic *ṛ* as
>>> [ara] (with both [a]s a quarter mora), I have published a paper: Were ṛ and
>>> ḷ velar in early Sanskrit? *Vidyā-Vratin: Professor A. M. Ghatage
>>> felicitation **volume*, ed. by V. N. Jha, 69-94. (Sri Garib Dass
>>> Oriental Series, 160.) Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1992
>>>
>>> To teach retroflex to American students I ask them to pronounce their
>>> *r* and, while they are doing so, press the tongue hard against the
>>> roof of the mouth, which produces a retroflex stop *ṭ* that is quite
>>> distinct from their *t* sound.
>>>
>>> In general, I have found it useful to adopt one of the regional variants
>>> of modern Indian pronounciations (I use the northern one with *ri* for
>>> *ṛ* and *gy* for *jñ* (while properly warning the students that these
>>> are modern pronunciations). By becoming familiar with this way of
>>> pronouncing Sanskrit students will find it easier to follow Indian
>>> Sanskritists when they are speaking/pronouncing Sanskrit. I also urge
>>> students to keep their aspirates and nonaspirates and their dentals and
>>> retroflexes as distinct as possible, telling them that when I was beginning
>>> to study Sanskrit I sometimes spent fruitless hours locating something in
>>> the dictionary because of looking up under the “wrong *t*”.
>>>
>>> I hope some of you will find these remarks interesting.
>>>
>>> All the best – stay safe,
>>>
>>> Hans Henrich
>>>
>>>
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