[INDOLOGY] ळ in south Indian grantha sanskrit manuscripts
George Hart
glhart at berkeley.edu
Fri Mar 24 19:47:45 UTC 2023
Looking through the Tamil Lexicon, I find kāḷi for the name of the goddess but not kāli. Similarly, piraḷayakālam but no entry for piralaya. On the other hand, Sanskrit Vālī becomes only vāli, not vāḷi. It would seem that these usages are consistent and required in Tamil. It would be interesting to see whether such usages are seen in grantha manuscripts, and also to investigate how widespread and consistent they are in various South Indian languages. George
> On Mar 24, 2023, at 2:11 PM, Lavanya Vemsani via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
> Many of these letters were considered redundant & useless. I don’t know about other southern languages, but Telugu actually removed the ಳ = ळ a few years ago from the Akshramala. Few letters were removed, but this is the only one where differences are starkly noticed by the public, since this is part of common words like kallu (eyes) etc.
> Thank you.
> Lavanya
>
> It wou
> Lavanya Vemsani
> Ph.D (History) Ph.D. (Religious Studies)
> Professor, Dept. of Social Sciences
> Shawnee State University
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>
>> On Mar 24, 2023, at 12:37 PM, Christophe Vielle via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>>
>> More specifically related to Kerala (but still without historical explanation or systematical account) is the article of K. Kunjunni Raja, "Kerala Pronunciation of Sanskrit", Adyar Library Bulletin 25, 1961, pp. 461-476 - see on l/ḷ the pp. 472-3 here attached.
>> The general question which arises in the case of "purely" regional texts is: should the critical edition of such texts adopt the regional spellings of Sanskrit, as given (all) in the (indigenous script) manuscripts, or shift to the normalized orthography. As reminded by Esposito, the printed editions in local scripts (for instance Malayalam) preserve these peculiar spellings of the local manuscripts.
>> <5f8dc698-bc3f-4029-9339-d0250994ecb4.jpeg>
>>
>>> Le 24 mars 2023 à 15:13, Harry Spier via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> a écrit :
>>>
>>> Jonas Buccholz wrote: I have not been able to find any consistent pattern when l becomes retroflex
>>> and Anna Esposito wrote: So far, no one has been able to explain to me why the l has been
>>> changed to ḷ in these words, and consistently in every manuscript (and
>>> also in the printed edition).
>>> I also don't see a pattern. For example this sentence from the manuscript I'm looking at:
>>> दळाग्रे हां सूर्यमण्डलाय नमः। Why दळा . . . but . . .ण्डला. . .
>>> Harry Spier
>>>
>>>>> On 2023-03-24 14:18, Andrew Ollett via INDOLOGY wrote:
>>>>>> Dear all,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In Kannada, too, Sanskrit words are often written with a retroflex ḷ (ಳ = ळ) where we might have expected l (ಲ = ल). The retroflex ḷ in Sanskrit words is called by the name kṣaḷa (ಕ್ಷಳ) in Kēśava's Śabdamaṇidarpaṇam (1260 CE). Kēśava (or Kēśirāja, as he is also known) distinguishes this sound from the retroflex ḷ found in Kannada words, called kuḷa (ಕುಳ), which is however written with exactly the same letter (ಳ). Kēśava further notes that the kṣaḷa and kuḷa (ಳ = ळ) can serve as equivalents for the sake of prāsa (second-letter alliteration), whereas the dental l (ಲ = ल) cannot alternate with either of them.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't know precisely (a) why Kēśirāja felt it necessary to distinguish between the Sanskrit and Kannada retroflex ḷ; and (b) why the retroflex ḷ (kṣaḷa) occurs optionally in some Sanskrit words, in some positions, and not in others. Kittel in his /Grammar of the Kannada Language /pp. 14–15 <https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails%2Fin.gov.ignca.23505%2Fpage%2F13%2Fmode%2F2up&data=05%7C01%7Cchristophe.vielle%40uclouvain.be%7C010a2a6d1d9d4e0580d308db2c6e822f%7C7ab090d4fa2e4ecfbc7c4127b4d582ec%7C0%7C0%7C638152625371200345%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=6zP26X299xcrvTg1G1m8T5R8faN8G0JB6cZjXMApo8M%3D&reserved=0 <https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails%2Fin.gov.ignca.23505%2Fpage%2F13%2Fmode%2F2up&data=05%7C01%7Cchristophe.vielle%40uclouvain.be%7Ceb3ce3e7c9154aca648e08db2c840981%7C7ab090d4fa2e4ecfbc7c4127b4d582ec%7C0%7C0%7C638152717834631057%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=qxKxuNxgxo9FQQKVTtqoAhJwgGLeiNii1600rvbH55I%3D&reserved=0>>, §30, says: “It is often used by Kannaḍa people as a substitute for the Saṁskṛita ಲ (= ल), the sound of which in the Saṁskṛita language apparently bears a dubious character for them, one that is neither their ಲ (= ल) nor their ಳ (= ळ); this ಳ (= ळ) is Kêšava’s kṣaḷa.” I interpret this to mean: whereas Kannada clearly distinguishes a dental and retroflex lateral, Sanskrit does not, and the Sanskrit lateral is pronounced somewhere between a dental and retroflex position (kind of like the "dental" stops in most kinds of American English), with some phonotactically-conditioned variation within this range. The exact conditions of this variation remain a little obscure, but Kēśava does after all call the consonant kṣaḷa, which suggests that the retroflexion is found (among other places) in those same contexts where dental n is retroflexed to ṇ. Christophe's observation that retroflex ḷ is not used word-initially accords with my impression of Kannada usage.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Andrew
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Mar 24, 2023 at 5:08 AM Christophe Vielle via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I was in course of stating more or less the same as Anna Aurelia
>>>>>> about the Malayalam script manuscripts, observing the regularity
>>>>>> of the use of the retroflex for peculiar words, which, I would
>>>>>> add, usually preserve this peculiarity in their
>>>>>> borrowing/inclusion within Malayalam language. The retroflex is
>>>>>> systematically replaced by -l- in the Devanagari manuscripts which
>>>>>> are transcripts of Malayalam script mss., with the problem that
>>>>>> this retroflex can in fact also sometime be used for -ḍ- (see
>>>>>> below /jaḷa/ for /jaḍa/ etc.).
>>>>>> Contrasting examples are /viḷambita/ (cf. /viḷambase/ in
>>>>>> Esposito's post) with a "forced" intervocalic -l- > -ḷ- after a
>>>>>> prefixe (/lamb- /alone being written with l-),
>>>>>> versus///vilo//ḷita/ keeping the initial -l- of the theme after
>>>>>> the prefixe. A more complete listing of the forms of the concerned
>>>>>> words (from the apparatus in crit. ed. mentioning them) should be
>>>>>> made for drawing linguistic conclusions. The references of Philipp
>>>>>> Maas are useful in this respect.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A few samples from a text in course of edition
>>>>>>
>>>>>> vilolita : viloḷita
>>>>>> kuntala : kuntaḷa
>>>>>> lalita : laḷita
>>>>>> pulinā : puḷinā
>>>>>> milatpulakakuḍmalaṃ : miḷatpuḷakakuḍmaḷaṃ
>>>>>> valakṣagu : vaḷakṣagu
>>>>>> kalakala : kaḷakaḷa
>>>>>> alinda : aḷinda
>>>>>> gala : gaḷa
>>>>>> antarāla : antarāḷa
>>>>>> pacelima : paceḷima
>>>>>> bahala : bahaḷa
>>>>>> gadula : gaduḷa
>>>>>> nalina : naḷina
>>>>>> bakula : bakuḷa
>>>>>>
>>>>>> vilambita : viḷambita
>>>>>>
>>>>>> jaḍa : jaḷa
>>>>>>
>>>>>> From a purāṇa text:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> /pātāla /:///pātāḷa/
>>>>>> /śālin- /: /ṣāḷin//-/
>>>>>> /tolikā /: /toḷikā/
>>>>>> /argala-/: /arggaḷa-/
>>>>>> /vyāla/- : /vyāḷa/-
>>>>>> /bala- / : /vaḷa-/
>>>>>> /karāla- /:///karāḷa-/
>>>>>> /pralaya- /: /praḷaya-/
>>>>>> /dhūli/- : /dhūḷi/-
>>>>>> /alakā- : //aḷakā-/
>>>>>>
>>>>>> /-viluḍī/- : -/viluḷī/-
>>>>>> -/jaḍī/- : -/jaḷī/-
>>>>>> /-vrīḍam /: /-vrīḷam/
>>>>>> /kṣveḍita-/ : /kṣveḷita-/
>>>>>> /thuḍa- /:///thuḷa/-
>>>>>> /huḍa- / : / huḷa-/
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Le 24 mars 2023 à 09:29, Anna Aurelia Esposito
>>>>>>> <anna.esposito at uni-wuerzburg.de <mailto:anna.esposito at uni-wuerzburg.de>> a écrit :
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Dear Harry Spier,
>>>>>>> I found the same in drama manuscripts written in Malayāḷam
>>>>>>> script. In particular Sanskrit words intervocalic l is replaced
>>>>>>> by ḷ. This usage persevers not only in all manuscripts, but also
>>>>>>> in the editions printed in Malayāḷam script (see e.g. the
>>>>>>> edition of the “Trivandrum Plays” ascribed to Bhasa of Bhāskaran,
>>>>>>> 1987).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In Cārudatta ascribed to Bhāsa we find for example ḷ in I.2a
>>>>>>> dehaḷīnām, I.13b bahaḷa-, I.13b -kāḷā-, I.26.38 viḷambase, III.8b
>>>>>>> karāḷo, III.10b -kākaḷīṣu, III.12d nīḷa-, in Dūtavākya -kaḷaṅka-
>>>>>>> 35.1, -praḷaya- 47c and *49c, -laḷitā- *47a.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So far, no one has been able to explain to me why the l has been
>>>>>>> changed to ḷ in these words, and consistently in every manuscript
>>>>>>> (and also in the printed edition). A possible explanation would
>>>>>>> be, as you suggest, that one scribe read the text and the other
>>>>>>> wrote it; but in some cases it is evident from the errors in the
>>>>>>> manuscripts that the text was copied and not written down by
>>>>>>> hearing. I am curious if someone from the list can give us an
>>>>>>> explanation.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Best wishes,
>>>>>>> Anna Esposito
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Zitat von Harry Spier via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>>:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 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
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> नाळिकेरोद्भवंपादौप्रक्षाळ्याचम्यमुकुळीकृतियपिण्गळायवामांघ्र्यब्जदळासह्रिताम्अण्गुळ्यग्रेणशुद्धविद्यातत्वव्याप्तसर्वमणळोपेतं
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 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
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>
>> –––––––––––––––––––
>> Christophe Vielle <https://uclouvain.be/en/directories/christophe.vielle>
>> Louvain-la-Neuve
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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