That's one more reason to revise IAST since the letter you mention (/ḻ/)
is the now standard transliteration for another letter, the Tamil ழ்
namely, the final letter of /Tamiḻ.
/
The French used to have a different system that mixes lower and
upper-case characters, but this system does not seem to be very popular
anymore.
IAST, as its name indicates, is adapted to Sanskrit only. Another
familiar issue is fact that e and o indicate long letters in IAST and
short ones in Tamil, and in other languages that have these short letters.
From a practical viewpoint, it would be nice to have versions in GRETIL
and other repositories that are more inclusive, at least
Tamil-compatible, since manuscripts containing Tamil and Sanskrit text
together are plenty. S'aivism is an obvious example. For mathematics,
especially in the Madhava school that produced extremely interesting
results from the fourteenth century onwards, Malayalam and Sanskrit may
be used concurrently, so that the same issue arises.
One should remember that in India, texts in several languages are very
common, and that the problem was solved by having a different script for
each language. Transliteration in such cases fails to reproduce an
essential element of manuscripts. I remember a music composition that
used four scripts.
We Indologists needs to be as inclusive as possible for obvious reasons.
Satyanad Kichenassamy
Le 24/03/2023 à 14:18, Harry Spier a écrit :
Looking at this page of wikipedia IAST uses l underbar for retroflex l.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Alphabet_of_Sanskrit_Transliteration#Comparison_with_ISO_15919
Harry Spier
On Fri, Mar 24, 2023 at 6:32 AM Satyanad Kichenassamy
<[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Jonas (if I may),
IAST, as you say, is not satisfactory. ISO 15919 is better in this
regard, as it distinguishes ḷ and l̥. IPA uses l̩
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllabic_consonant> for ऌ.
Best regards,
Satyanad Kichenassamy
Le 24/03/2023 à 09:13, Buchholz, Jonas a écrit :
Dear Harry (if I may),
Retroflex l (ळ)is quite common in South Indian Sanskrit
manuscripts and prints. For example, in the Śaiva /Kāñcīmāhātmya/
(a Sanskrit sthalamāhātmya on the city of Kanchipuram), I find
the following examples just in the first two chapterts: śītal̤a,
yugal̤a, uddhūl̤ita, kāl̤ikā, vakul̤a, nāl̤ikera, dal̤a,
niṣkal̤a, sakal̤a, kramel̤aka, maul̤i…
Sanskrit loanwords in South Indian languages also often reflect
the pronunciation with retroflex l, e.g. the goddes Kālī is
called காளிKāḷi (with retroflex l) in Tamil.
My impression is that there are certain words in which l is quite
consistently replaced by retroflex l, while other words retain
then “normal” l. However, I have not been able to find any
consistent pattern when l becomes retroflex – any insights would
be appreciated!
Another question is how retroflex l should be represented in
Roman transliteration. The most straightforward solution would be
ḷ (in analogy with ṭ, ḍ, ṇ, ṣ), which is also the character used
for retroflex l in Tamil transliteration, but in IAST
transliteration ḷ is already reserved for vocalic l (ऌ). As you
can see above, I have tentatively been using l̤ for retroflex l,
but I would be happy to know if any other conventions have been used.
Best wishes,
Jonas Buchholz
_______ _____ _
*Dr. Jonas Buchholz*
Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Project “Hindu Temple Legends in South India”
Karl Jaspers Centre
Voßstr. 2 | Building 4400 | Room 004
69115 Heidelberg, Germany
P: +49 (0)6221 54 4095
E: [email protected]
W: https://www.hadw-bw.de/htl <https://www.hadw-bw.de/htl>
*Von:*INDOLOGY <[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]> *Im Auftrag von
*Harry Spier via INDOLOGY
*Gesendet:* Freitag, 24. März 2023 02:10
*An:* [email protected]
*Betreff:* [INDOLOGY] ळ in south Indian grantha sanskrit manuscripts
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
नाळिकेरोद्भवं
पादौप्रक्षाळ्याचम्य
मुकुळीकृतिय
पिण्गळाय
वामांघ्र्यब्जदळासह्रिताम्
अण्गुळ्यग्रेण
शुद्धविद्यातत्वव्याप्तसर्वमणळोपेतं
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
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Satyanad KICHENASSAMY
Professor of Mathematics
Laboratoire de Mathématiques de Reims (CNRS, UMR9008)
Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne
F-51687 Reims Cedex 2
France
Web:https://www.normalesup.org/~kichenassamy
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Satyanad KICHENASSAMY
Professor of Mathematics
Laboratoire de Mathématiques de Reims (CNRS, UMR9008)
Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne
F-51687 Reims Cedex 2
France
Web:https://www.normalesup.org/~kichenassamy
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