Send sanskrit mailing list submissions to
[email protected]
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://mailman.cs.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/sanskrit
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
You can reach the person managing the list at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of sanskrit digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Learning sanskrit pronunciation (Michel Bostrom)
2. RE: Learning sanskrit pronunciation (Haresh Bakshi)
3. Modern Day Sanskrit Poet - Details sought (A.R. Ramachandran)
4. udyogaparvam - sarga 18 - 5 ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
5. Vasistha's definition of Yoga (Sandeep)
6. pronunciation of the anusvara (Ramesh Krishnamurthy)
7. Modern Day Sanskrit Poet - Details sought (Vasuvaj .)
8. question to all (RAKESH MARAJ)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 11:19:23 +1000
From: "Michel Bostrom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Sanskrit] Learning sanskrit pronunciation
To: <[email protected]>
Cc: 'Praveen' <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Message-ID:
<!~!UENERkVCMDkAAQACAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABgAAAAAAAAAttcWBeieDk2/JsgGK9n5mKLnAAAQAAAAEf0WCgSmm0+sCCvL3QX/[EMAIL
PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I received the message below from a subscriber. As the query is of broader
interest, I thought the reply worth posting. Essentially, the writer asks
me to put a much more practical focus on my earlier posting. I am afraid
that this leads to a certain amount of duplication.
Dear Zach,
I have no idea whether there are any audio resources available for learning
Sanskrit, and if so, whether these would have original ancient
pronunciations of the modern "liturgical" ones.
If you are ready to do as I did, you can read a textbook on phonetics and
then working your way through Allen's "Phonetics in Ancient India", you can
figure out how to pronounce each sound.
Much easier would be to get tapes of modern Hindi. The principal difference
between Hindi and Sanskrit SOUNDS are:
1) Hindi does not have the sound represented by visarga at the end of a word
(much like the english voiceless "h").
2) Hindi has a number of sounds not found in Sanskrit, including the "z" and
the "f", which have come in primarily due to Persian influence. In Sanskrit
these sounds will not occur, so you do not need to know how to pronounce
them, but if you happen to learn there is no harm done.
Therefore, if you practise the Hindi sounds you cannot go too far wrong.
Once you have learnt the sounds you are equipped to pronounce Sanskrit
words. All you need to add is the visarga sound.
Now to the WRITING SYSTEM, which in Sanskrit is perfectly phonetical. The
characters used can be the ancient Brahmi (such as found on Ashoka's stones,
a copy of which can be seen outside the museum on Janpath in Delhi); the
modern Devanagari, Tamil characters, or even one of the various modern roman
character sets used to trnaliterate. It does not matter. The phonetic
classification of the sounds and the writing system is independent of the
characters used.
Hindi, by contrast is not written phonetically, and certain pronunciations
are used for Devanagari spellings which do not correspond to those of
classical Sanskrit. Learn the sounds represented by the writing system in
accordance with the Hindi practice, save for the following inexactitudes
which exist in Hindi:
1) Sanskrit words containing a vocalic r are pronounced as if the sound
represented is "ri". This is not because Hindi lacks a vocalic r but
because modern Indians have lost track of the original system. It seems to
me that through the development of Prakrit and Apabhramsha, the vocalic r
decayed. It then re-appeared in Hindi and other modern Indian languages
when the final short "a" disappeared. Sanskrit loan words with the original
termination "ra" were left with a vocalic r at the end when the final "a"
was dropped; e.g. Hindi "patr" from the sanskrit "patra". (You get a bit of
a feel for developments by reading the prakrit translations in Kalidasa's
plays.) I am no expert on the historic development of Indian languages;
these are just my impressions from my reading of the texts. So if I have
got this wrong, I would gladly stand corrected. Pronounce the vocalic r
like the sound in english "curt" or "dirt", or Hindi "patr" or "mantr".
2)Gutturals: The visarga sound does not exist in Hindi. As earlier
discussed in these pages, Hindi speakers generally use an echo of the
previous vowel as a substitute. In the middle of words, Hindi does not have
a voiced guttural following a vowel, so Hindi speakers ignore it; for
example the word written "brahm" is pronounced exactly as it would be if it
were spelt "bram". You will have to figure these prnounciations yourself.
3) The nasalised vowel - represented by anusvara in Sanskrit. In Sanskrit,
the pronunciation of the word "Sanskrit", for example, should be more like
the french nasal vowel, or the Hindi nasal vowel in "han-ji" rather than the
english word "an", as it is commonly pronounced in Hindi. Hindi misuses the
writing system, failing to distinguish between the two, and using the
anusvara as a short cut instead of writing out a nasal consonant.
4) "Jna": this sound combination does not occur in Hindi. Hindi speakers
generally pronounce sanskrit words containing it with "gya".
Kind regards
Michel
-----Original Message-----
From: Zachary Studt [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, 19 October 2005 09:33
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Sanskrit Pronunciation
Thanks for the info. I still don't really understand unfortunately, and I
have no idea how to pronounce most of the language. If you find any sites
that offer authentic downloadable audio clips or anything similar, please
let me know.
Best wishes,
Zach
Michel Boström
Silver Batts Insulation Systems
12 Church Avenue Mascot NSW
PO Box 1275 Dee Why NSW 2099 Australia
Tel +61 2 9317 4455
Fax +61 2 9317 3322
Email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended
solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed.
If you have received this e-mail by mistake please delete this e-mail from
your system. Please note that any views or opinions presented in this email
are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of
Silver Batts Insulation Systems. The recipient should check this email and
any attachments for the presence of viruses. Silver Batts Insulation Systems
do not accept liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by
this email.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, 20 October 2005 04:03
To: [email protected]
Subject: sanskrit Digest, Vol 31, Issue 17
Send sanskrit mailing list submissions to
[email protected]
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://mailman.cs.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/sanskrit
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
You can reach the person managing the list at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than
"Re: Contents of sanskrit digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Importance of correct pronunciation in verse (Jay Vaidya)
2. Re: sanskrit Digest, Vol 31, Issue 16 (J. K. Mohana Rao)
3. dhanyavaadaH !! (Dr. Nilesh Kulkarni)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 11:54:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jay Vaidya <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Sanskrit] Importance of correct pronunciation in verse
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Excellent points below. It is probably a good compromise to maintain the
ancient "living language"
pronunciation for one's appreciation of metric verse, but use one of the
modern "chant" versions to honor one's immediate teachers, in their
presence.
Dhananjay
> From: "Michel Bostrom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: ...pronunciation
> ...the current popular pronunciations ...
> arguably represent a legitimate modern form, or dialect, of the
> language, ... it is obviously merely good manners to use that
> teacher's pronunciation - at least in her presence.
>
> As a student of language and history I prefer to adhere to the
> classical pronuciations, ... because the variant modern pronunciations
> destroy the metre of classical Sanskrit (and Vedic) verse.
__________________________________
Yahoo! Music Unlimited
Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.
http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 13:25:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: "J. K. Mohana Rao" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Sanskrit] Re: sanskrit Digest, Vol 31, Issue 16
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> From: "Michel Bostrom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> There is quite a range
> of pronunciation of Sanskrit by modern Sanskrit "speakers",
> particularly when it comes to visarga, vocalic r and anuswara.
>
I agree with all that you have written. Adding the vowel to visarga at
times is jarring to the ears. An extra mAtra is also added at the end. One
must remember, however, that in Sanskrit shlOkas, only for the later half of
a pAda with eight aksharas, the pattern is fixed. For the first four
letters, anything goes!
Therefore, during recitation an extra mAtra at the end due to visarga taking
the vowel sound can easily be accomodated. But in akshara chhandas such as
vRttAs, and mAtrAchhandas such as aaryA, the addition of a vowel certainly
hampers the gait. One more aspect that must be remembered is that in
Sanskrit, a pAdA.nta laghu can be considered as a guru too!
(Among the named vRttAs, only three have pAdA.nta laghus. For all others
(in hundreds) it is always a guru. Even when it is a guru at the end, a
laghu can be used and in such cases it is considered as a guru. The extra
mAtra is taken care of by the compulsory vishrAma (yati) at the end of the
pAda.
This rule is not true for vRttAs in telugu or kannaDa.
Regards! - J K Mohana Rao
__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 05:33:13 +0100 (BST)
From: "Dr. Nilesh Kulkarni" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Sanskrit] dhanyavaadaH !!
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
namo namaH,
sarvebhyo aham dhanyavAdAn vitarAmi, yataH naikaiH aSTEdhyAyim adhikRtya
saGgaNaka praNAlyAH saGketam sUchitam |
dhanyavAdAH |
nIleshaH
---------------------------------
Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your partner now.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
http://mailman.cs.utah.edu/pipermail/sanskrit/attachments/20051019/5d840b10/
attachment-0001.htm
------------------------------
_______________________________________________
sanskrit mailing list
[email protected]
http://mailman.cs.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/sanskrit
End of sanskrit Digest, Vol 31, Issue 17
****************************************
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 22:33:58 -0400
From: "Haresh Bakshi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: [Sanskrit] Learning sanskrit pronunciation
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [email protected]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
namaste,
>>>>Dear Zach,
>I have no idea whether there are any audio resources available for learning
>Sanskrit, and if so, whether these would have original ancient
>pronunciations of the modern "liturgical" ones. >>>>
Well, I am that audio source! If anyone is serious about learning
Sanskrit pronunciation, I am willing to spare some limited time and
teach using Google Talk. The student can record the chat sessions
for repeated revisions. If the learner does not have a Google account,
I am willing to even send an invitation for membership. All you need
after that, is the broadband Internet and a computer with a
microphone attached.
No obligation.
dhanyavaadaH | hareshaH |
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 07:49:28 +0200 (MEST)
From: "A.R. Ramachandran" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Sanskrit] Modern Day Sanskrit Poet - Details sought
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Dear all,
A few years ago, I came across a newsapaper article (I think in The Hindu,
but not sure). Therein, I heard about a sanskrit poet (who also, I think,
was a professor of sanskrit) from Vijayawada. The greatness about him was
that he could compose verses extempore and did it for 24 hours where many
sanskrit scholars threw themes and questions at him. I believe it was some
kind of a record.
And this was not during Kalidasa's time but just less than a decade back in
Kaliyuga.
Can anyone give the details about this poet, his address/contact details and
some thing about his works? Is he there on this list?
Kind Regards, AR
--
__________________________
Bloom Where You Are Planted
__________________________
Telefonieren Sie schon oder sparen Sie noch?
NEU: GMX Phone_Flat http://www.gmx.net/de/go/telefonie
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 07:30:00 -0700
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Sanskrit] udyogaparvam - sarga 18 - 5
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Translation by Vikram Santurkar under supervision of Dr. Sarasvati Mohan
shlokaH 5
tataH sa bhagavA.nstatra a~NgirAH samadR^ishyata .
atharvaveda-mantraishcha devendra.n samapUjayat .. 5..\
padavibhAgaH
tataH saH bhagavAn tatra a~NgirAH samadR^ishyata .
atharvaveda-mantraiH cha devendra.n samapUjayat ..
anvayaH
tataH tatra bhagavAn a~NgirAH samadR^ishyata
cha saH atharvaveda-mantraiH devendra.n samapUjayat .
pratipadArthaH
tataH=Then;
tatra=there;
bhagavAn=Lord;
a~NgirAH=Sage Angirasa;
samadR^ishyata=was seen;
cha=and;
saH=he;
atharvaveda-mantraiH=with mantras from Atharvaveda;
devendra.n=Indra;
samapUjayat=praised, worshipped;
anuvAdaH
Then, there the great sage Angirasa was seen and with atharvaveda mantras
he praised Indra.
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 12:10:29 +0530
From: Sandeep <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Sanskrit] Vasistha's definition of Yoga
To: [email protected]
Message-ID:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Namaste,
I'm researching some source definitions on the term "Yoga." Apart from
the common ones "yogashchittavritti nirodah" I'd like to know how
Maharshi Vasistha has defined it in his Yoga Vaashishta.
Please Help.
Dhanyavaadah
Sandeep B
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 13:36:15 +0530
From: Ramesh Krishnamurthy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Sanskrit] pronunciation of the anusvara
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Namaste,
I had a query on the pronunciation of the anusvara. My understanding
is as follows:
1) If the anusvara is followed by a consonant ('ka' to 'ma') it takes
the sound of the last consonant in the specific varga. For example,
anusvara followed by 'ka' or 'ga' would take the '~N' sound (ITRANS);
anusvara followed by 'ta' or 'da' would take the 'n' sound, followed
by 'pa' or 'ba' would take the 'm' sound, etc
2) If the anusvara is followed by ya, ra, la, va, sha, Sha, sa, ha, it
would take the 'm' sound.
I am pretty sure of (1) above but not of (2). For example, what is the
correct pronunciation of saMskR^ita? In the north, it is pronounced as
sanskR^it, in the south as samskR^it. I think the latter is more
correct, but what is the level of emphasis on the 'm'?
In Kerala, the anusvara is sometimes pronounced as the full 'ma' and
not just 'm'. For example, saMrakshaNa is often pronounced
samarakshaNa, which is clearly wrong.
dhanyavaadaH
ramesh
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 10:30:45 +0000
From: "Vasuvaj ." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Sanskrit] Modern Day Sanskrit Poet - Details sought
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
http://mailman.cs.utah.edu/pipermail/sanskrit/attachments/20051021/7fe45c35/attachment-0001.htm
------------------------------
Message: 8
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 09:06:41 -0400
From: "RAKESH MARAJ" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Sanskrit] question to all
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
http://mailman.cs.utah.edu/pipermail/sanskrit/attachments/20051021/f8a480d6/attachment.htm
------------------------------
_______________________________________________
sanskrit mailing list
[email protected]
http://mailman.cs.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/sanskrit
End of sanskrit Digest, Vol 31, Issue 18
****************************************
