Dear Friends,
I'm currently collecting some data on spoken Sanskrit.
One dominant feature I have noticed in several different language nests across geographically diverse parts of North India is the use of /to/. During countless conversations over the last two months I have heard this particle used many times, albeit always in the same syntactic position and for the same semantic reason.
My question regards whether this /to/ particle is in any way to be considered a Sanskrit particle or not?
This /to/ particle, as far as my understanding allows, is the intensifier particle from Hindi and other MILs. It is located consistently following the agent like in a Hindi sentence. This demonstrates, perhaps that the grammatical scaffolding of spoken Sanskrit relies implicitly on the syntactical structure of MILs like Hindi as a potential first language (L1) of a speaker. Contextualising some more, I have heard this particle used by my language consultants whose L1s are Malvi, Hindi, Assamese and Nepali.
Below are some brief examples to clarify my query.
1) Hindi maiñ to ghar (ko) jātā hūñ
2) Sanskrit ahaṁ to gṛhe gacchāmi
As a Hindi speaker myself, I find I am also using this /to/ particle in the same way to create emphasis.
3) ahaṁ to bubhukṣā asmi
I understand that the particle /tu/ in Sanskrit serves a similar semantic function and I'm guessing it is the historical precedent of /to/. However, my consultants are not using /tu/ they are using /to/!
For an audible example, in the latter stages (1 min 57-58 sec) of
this clip you can here the phrase
4) ahaṁ to saṁskṛtaṁ jānāmi'
The speaker in this clip is an L1 speaker of Malvi. More specifically Umawadi Malvi, which is the dialect of Rajgarh Jhila, MP.
Reiterating my query more precisely, can I consider this to be a case of code-mixing?
Thanks in advance for helping to clarify this point of interest for me.
All the best,
Patrick McCartney
PhD Candidate
School of Culture, History & Language
College of the Asia-Pacific
The Australian National University
Canberra, Australia, 0200
Skype - psdmccartney
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