Re: [tied] Centum in Vedic?

--- In cybalist@..., "Dean_Anderson" <dean_anderson@...> wrote:

> Perhaps I don't understand the comment "I don't think the last step
> (x > kH) is real as a sound change" but I should point out that this
> pronunciation of 'purukha' etc. is still very common wherever Shukla
> Yajur Veda is chanted in North India, i.e all over the place. And
> this is Vedic, not Classical, Sankrit. One would assume, given the
> obsession with proper pronunciation in Vedic rituals, that it has
> been passed down accurately . . .

But the present day chanters also mispronounce vocalic 'r' as 'ri'
and the visarga as 'h' with an inserted voiceless vowel to assist in
pronouncing a sound no longer found in their natural language.
An aspirated 'k' is also often substituted for the 'x' in modern
Indo-Aryan loans from Arabic, Farsi or Turkic. In short, the
present pronunciation of Sanskrit and Vedic is based on the
substitution of the closest available sounds in the chanter's first
language, with certain universally accepted conventions for
representing sounds no longer present in any modern Indo-Aryan
language, such as vocalic 'r' or 'l' and visarga. It's comparable to
the habit of some nowadays who pronounce Latin 'c' and 'g' as
affricates before a front vowel, as in Italian.

--- In cybalist@..., "michael_donne" <michael_donne@...> wrote:
> Is it possible that this 'kh' sound could be some kind of distant
> memory of what later gave rise to the Centum branch from an
> originally Satem-like PIE?

PIE was not originally Satem-like. The Centum dialects maintained
the sounds in question in a more conservative form than did the
Satem dialects. So PIE was more Centum-like, at least in regard
to the sound shift that we're discussing. In any case, languages can't
have memories of previous stages.

> In the same way that Bangani and Tocharian are also Centum.

Bangani is not a Centum, but an Indo-Aryan language. What some
believe is that it may have had an otherwise unknown Centum
language as a substrate.

--- In cybalist@..., "michael_donne" <michael_donne@...> wrote:
> On a related note, what kinds of things were found in Bangani and
> Tocharian that made them Centum? What keys were there that showed
> that Tocharian was a "late" Centum language?

The Satem dialects all together and at the same time took part in
a sound shift called the 'first palatalization'. 'Centum' is simply what
we call all the remaining dialects regardless of their degree of
relationship to one another. That's why it's said that there was no
great Centum/Satem split. In Satem, P.I.E. *k^ becomes a palatal
or prepalatal affricate before later becoming a fricative. In Satem
P.I.E. *k and *kW merge in a plain velar *k. In the Centum dialects
P.I.E. *k^ merges with *k, and *kW is maintained for a time.
Although these sounds also undergo shifts later, they take place at
different times and under different conditions in each dialect and have
nothing to do with THE 'first palatalization' which involved none
of the Centum dialects.

David