Dear Howard,

Thank you for your contribution. 

Regarding your first example, I suspect that the genealogy might look something like Skt. "-akṣa-" > Pkt. "-akkha-" > vernacular "-akha-"?? 

However, what has my colleague, her student, and I more intrigued is how/why the "-akha-" turns to "-ekha-" in some vernaculars. I can think of some examples of long "ā" turning to "e" in Odia, as with causative verbs. For example from basibā "to sit" we get basāiba "to cause to sit," which also appears as baseibā. But these are all long "ā" vowels followed by another vowel (rather than a short "a" before a consonant as with Gorekha < Gorakṣa ), so I suspect these long "ā" to "e" examples might result from a different process (?).


Sincerely,

Westin Harris
Ph.D. Candidate
Study of Religion 
University of California, Davis
The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies

Sarva Mangalam.


On Mon, Jun 17, 2024 at 8:03 PM Howard Resnick <hr@ivs.edu> wrote:
Greetings Westin,

I cannot comment on akṣ to ekh, but from my own observations, in parts of East India, such as West Bengal  (which borders Odisha) kṣ routinely changes to kh. The reason seems to be that Bengali tends to avoid consonant clusters, probably for ease of pronunciation, in at least two ways: 

1. By removing one consonant. Thus Parikṣit (Parikshit) becomess Parikhit, kṣetra -> khetra etc. -akṣ to ekh seems to be a variation of this principle.

2. By inserting a vowel between two hard consonants. Thus bhakta becomes bhakata.

I’m sure others here know much more about this.

Best wishes,
Howard
  
On Jun 17, 2024, at 10:41 PM, Westin Harris via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

Greetings Indologists,

I am posting for a colleague who is working with a "very bright undergraduate student" on a research paper that falls slightly outside her (and my) areas of expertise. 

Her student is looking for thoughts/sources that discuss the evolution of -akṣ- to -ekh- in certain South Asian vernaculars. Some examples that immediately come to my mind are "Gorekha" (from gorakṣa) and "Alekha" (from alakṣya) in Odia. 

They are also looking for sources discussing how such phonetic changes can impact orthography (like how some phonetic changes come to be reflected in writing, while others are not?) and/or meaning (like how Odia "alekha" takes on the semantic range of both a+√lakṣ and a+√likh?). 

Thank you all.


Sincerely,

Westin Harris
Ph.D. Candidate
Study of Religion 
University of California, Davis
The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Program in Buddhist Studies

Sarva Mangalam.

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