[INDOLOGY] Fwd: ळ in south Indian grantha sanskrit manuscripts

Fri Mar 24 13:46:02 UTC 2023

That's one more reason to revise IAST since the letter you mention (/ḻ/) 
is the now standard transliteration for another letter, the Tamil ழ் 
namely, the final letter of /Tamiḻ.
/

The French used to have a different system that mixes lower and 
upper-case characters, but this system does not seem to be very popular 
anymore.

IAST, as its name indicates, is adapted to Sanskrit only. Another 
familiar issue is fact that e and o indicate long letters in IAST and 
short ones in Tamil, and in other languages that have these short letters.

>From a practical viewpoint, it would be nice to have versions in GRETIL 
and other repositories that are more inclusive, at least 
Tamil-compatible, since manuscripts containing Tamil and Sanskrit text 
together are plenty. S'aivism is an obvious example. For mathematics, 
especially in the Madhava school that produced extremely interesting 
results from the fourteenth century onwards, Malayalam and Sanskrit may 
be used concurrently, so that the same issue arises.

One should remember that in India, texts in several languages are very 
common, and that the problem was solved by having a different script for 
each language. Transliteration in such cases fails to reproduce an 
essential element of manuscripts. I remember a music composition that 
used four scripts.

We Indologists needs to be as inclusive as possible for obvious reasons.

Satyanad Kichenassamy

Le 24/03/2023 à 14:18, Harry Spier a écrit :
> Looking at this page of wikipedia  IAST uses l underbar for retroflex l.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Alphabet_of_Sanskrit_Transliteration#Comparison_with_ISO_15919
> Harry Spier
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 24, 2023 at 6:32 AM Satyanad Kichenassamy 
> <satyanad.kichenassamy at univ-reims.fr> wrote:
>
>     Dear Jonas (if I may),
>
>     IAST, as you say, is not satisfactory. ISO 15919 is better in this
>     regard, as it distinguishes ḷ and l̥. IPA uses l̩
>     <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllabic_consonant> for ऌ.
>
>     Best regards,
>
>                  Satyanad Kichenassamy
>
>     Le 24/03/2023 à 09:13, Buchholz, Jonas a écrit :
>>
>>     Dear Harry (if I may),
>>
>>     Retroflex l (ळ)is quite common in South Indian Sanskrit
>>     manuscripts and prints. For example, in the Śaiva /Kāñcīmāhātmya/
>>     (a Sanskrit sthalamāhātmya on the city of Kanchipuram), I find
>>     the following examples just in the first two chapterts: śītal̤a,
>>     yugal̤a, uddhūl̤ita, kāl̤ikā, vakul̤a, nāl̤ikera, dal̤a,
>>     niṣkal̤a, sakal̤a, kramel̤aka, maul̤i…
>>
>>     Sanskrit loanwords in South Indian languages also often reflect
>>     the pronunciation with retroflex l, e.g. the goddes Kālī is
>>     called காளிKāḷi (with retroflex l) in Tamil.
>>
>>     My impression is that there are certain words in which l is quite
>>     consistently replaced by retroflex l, while other words retain
>>     then “normal” l. However, I have not been able to find any
>>     consistent pattern when l becomes retroflex – any insights would
>>     be appreciated!
>>
>>     Another question is how retroflex l should be represented in
>>     Roman transliteration. The most straightforward solution would be
>>     ḷ (in analogy with ṭ, ḍ, ṇ, ṣ), which is also the character used
>>     for retroflex l in Tamil transliteration, but in IAST
>>     transliteration ḷ is already reserved for vocalic l (ऌ). As you
>>     can see above, I have tentatively been using l̤ for retroflex l,
>>     but I would be happy to know if any other conventions have been used.
>>
>>     Best wishes,
>>     Jonas Buchholz
>>
>>     _______                _____ _
>>
>>     *Dr. Jonas Buchholz*
>>
>>     Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities
>>
>>     Project “Hindu Temple Legends in South India”
>>
>>     Karl Jaspers Centre
>>
>>     Voßstr. 2 | Building 4400 | Room 004
>>
>>     69115 Heidelberg, Germany
>>
>>     P: +49 (0)6221 54 4095
>>
>>     E: jonas.buchholz at hadw-bw.de
>>
>>     W: https://www.hadw-bw.de/htl <https://www.hadw-bw.de/htl>
>>
>>     *Von:*INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info>
>>     <mailto:indology-bounces at list.indology.info> *Im Auftrag von
>>     *Harry Spier via INDOLOGY
>>     *Gesendet:* Freitag, 24. März 2023 02:10
>>     *An:* indology at list.indology.info
>>     *Betreff:* [INDOLOGY] ळ in south Indian grantha sanskrit manuscripts
>>
>>     Dear list members,
>>
>>     I'm looking at the devanagari transcription of a south indian
>>     grantha manuscript.  most consonent l's are the classical
>>     sanskrit l i.e. ल but some words have the letter, ळ .
>>
>>     Some examples are:
>>     प्रक्षाळ्य
>>
>>     नाळिकेरोद्भवं
>>     पादौप्रक्षाळ्याचम्य
>>     मुकुळीकृतिय
>>     पिण्गळाय
>>     वामांघ्र्यब्जदळासह्रिताम्
>>     अण्गुळ्यग्रेण
>>     शुद्धविद्यातत्वव्याप्तसर्वमणळोपेतं
>>
>>     I'm pretty sure this isn't from typist misprints because
>>     प्रक्षाळ्य occcurs many times always spelled with ळ
>>
>>     Any explanations would be appreciated.  My understanding is that
>>     sometimes manuscripts were created by one scribe speaking the
>>     text and another scribe writing what he hears.  Is that a
>>     possible explanation for the occurance of this letter ळ .  I.e.
>>     local pronounciation creeping in.
>>
>>     Thanks,
>>
>>     Harry Spier
>>
>>
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     INDOLOGY mailing list
>>     INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>>     https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
>
>     -- 
>     **********************************************
>     Satyanad KICHENASSAMY
>     Professor of Mathematics
>     Laboratoire de Mathématiques de Reims  (CNRS, UMR9008)
>     Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne
>     F-51687 Reims Cedex 2
>     France
>     Web:https://www.normalesup.org/~kichenassamy
>     **********************************************
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     INDOLOGY mailing list
>     INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>     https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
>
-- 
**********************************************
Satyanad KICHENASSAMY
Professor of Mathematics
Laboratoire de Mathématiques de Reims  (CNRS, UMR9008)
Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne
F-51687 Reims Cedex 2
France
Web:https://www.normalesup.org/~kichenassamy
**********************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20230324/14e54d92/attachment.htm>