Thank you, Nagaraj. The manuscript in question is in Devanagari and belongs, according to the label, to the Lal Chand library at DAV College, Chandigarh, so I doubt if the scribe was a South Indian. I may add that it is a few centuries old, dated 1644 CE, though the label says सं १९०१ (for १७०१) by mistake.

A web search for संमतु turns up a very limited number of hits, but the first one is similar in context to 'my' manuscript:
इति श्री उत्तरकॉड सम्पूरण मसतु सुभमसुत ॥ संमतु ॥ 1860 ॥ मिती पौछ की इकादसी थित। वार शुकर ॥
This is from a book entitled भारतीय भाषाओं में रामकथा (पंजाबी भाषा), so perhaps we are looking at a northwestern rather than a southern phenomenon?

Martin

Den 2020-07-03 kl. 00:57, skrev Nagaraj Paturi:

Halanta words changing into ajanta words during borrowing is typically a feature of South Indian languages. That ending vowel being u is typically a Telugu feature.

Samvat is pronounced as close to Samvatu with the lat vowel being nearlly u in Telugu and some other south Indian languages.

But Samvatu changing into Sammati is uncommon in educated pronunciation. But possible in the case of a scribe being rustic.

Possible in a Telugu inscription or manuscript.

On Thu, Jul 2, 2020, 6:38 PM Martin Gansten via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

I just encountered the word saṃmatu at the end of a (Sanskrit Devanagari) manuscript where I would have expected saṃvat. I haven't seen it before and wonder if colleagues have -- perhaps it is a NIA form?

Best wishes,
Martin Gansten

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