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.