From: wtsdv
Message: 12547
Date: 2002-02-28
--- In cybalist@..., "Dean_Anderson" <dean_anderson@...> wrote:
>--- In cybalist@..., "wtsdv" <liberty@...> wrote:
> >
> > 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.
>
> This opinion is held by a few people, but I think most Indologists
> agree with Witzel that the Vedic chanting is an accurate
> representation of what prevailed 3000 years ago. Witzel calls it
> a "tape recording."
I didn't think that it was just an opinion. Sound
recordings have been made of the traditional recitation
of the Vedas and are widely available for confirmation.
Although I'm not exactly sure what it is that's being
contended. Are you doubtful that the modern pundits a
ctually substitute 'ri' for what was originally a syllabic
'r', or are you doubtful that the sound in question actually
ever was pronounced as a syllabic 'r', and that therefore
'ri' is the original and 'correct' pronunciation? I don't
think that Prof. Witzel would agree with either contention.
His e-mail address is witzel@.... Dare we bother
him about it? (-:
> I'd be very interested in reading or hearing more about this
> if you have more sources to quote or just your thoughts on this.
On the modern pronunciation of Sanskrit being based on the
sound system of the chanter's own language, Michael Coulson
writes in "Sanskrit - An introduction to this classical language"
"It may be wondered why several references are made in this
chapter to the values of the nagari letters as used for modern
Hindi. The point is that basically the values are the same for
both languages: spelling of the Indian vernaculars has never
been allowed to ossify in the same way as that of Italian and
Greek, in which words with a classical spelling (voce, hugíeia)
are given a quite unclassical pronunciation. Thus Sanskrit
karma 'deed' changed to Prakrit kamma and Medieval
Hindi kama. These distinctions are reflected in the spelling.
Only the latest change, to modern kam with final 'a mute',
remains unrecorded, and this can be justified both because
final a still has a vestigial, 'latent' existence, like French
'e muet', and because of the extreme inconvenience within
the Indian system of writing of marking this particular change.
That region which has most altered the traditional sound
values of the alphabet, Bengal, shows an exactly parallel
deviation in the way its pandits (of the older school) actually
pronounce Sanskrit itself. Another reason for mentioning
certain features of modern pronouncation is that these may
otherwise puzzle the learner when he hears Sanskrit spoken
by an Indian."
Most Sanskrit primers mention the modern pronuncation
of the syllabic 'r' as 'ri'. Coulson writes
"All three syllabic liquids, r, r: and l, vanished long ago
from popular speech, and the memory of how to pronounce
them correctly has faded. Syllabic l occurs only in some forms
of the verb klp and may be ignored. Pandits nowadays tend
to pronounce r as if it were ri and r: even more improbably
as ri:. (Hence the anglicised spelling Rigveda for rgveda.) For
convenience you may do the same. But it is by no means
impossible to make [r] a syllable in its own right: American
speakers do so in some pronunciations of 'pretty' ('prdy'),
and upper- and middle-classs Englishmen in some
pronunciations of 'interesting' ('íntrsting')."
On the modern pronunciation of visarga, Coulson writes
"Visarga - This is written as two dots after the syllable
(represented in transliteration by h). Its pronunciation
presents more difficulty to a European than that of anusvara.
In theory it is a pure voiceless aspiration like an English 'h',
but added after the vowel sound, whereas of course the
English aspirate always precedes a vowel. To achieve
this you might start by pronouncing it as the ch in German
ich, or even Scottish loch, and then refine away the 'rasping'
element until only a pure breathing is left. Alternatively,
you may, like many pandits introduce a fainter echo of the
preceding vowel sound: e.g. ** tah as 'taha', ** tih as 'tihi'
(which is like English 'tee-hee' only if you put all the stress
on the first syllable of the latter)."
(Note above that the second 'a' in 'taha' and second 'i' in
'tihi' was printed in small raised type.)
In "A Sanskrit Grammar" by Manfred Mayrhofer, he writes
"h is a voiced aspirate, -h (visarga) a voiceless aspirate.
In the pronunciation of today's Brahmans a slight sound
of the preceding vowel followes the visarga in absolute word-
final position: agnih=agnihi, devah=devaha."
(Note here again that the second 'i' in 'agnihi' and the
second 'a' in 'devaha' were printed in small raised type.)
> This was Deshpande's point in the article I mentioned earlier
> in the thread. However, his opinion is not widely accepted.
> I've heard Hock attacked it rather strongly although I'm still
> waiting for his paper to reach me. Certainly, Witzel would not
> agree, if I understand him correctly.
I may be wrong, and I've never read Deshpande's article (is it
available online?), but I doubt that Prof. Witzel would insist
that the modern recitation of the Vedas isn't affected by the
chanter's own language's sound system, especially at the level
of phonetic detail.
> Unlike the Prakrits, the Vedas have taken extreme measures to
> try and maintain the proper pronunciation since the efficacy
> of the rituals are believed to depend on it. Classical Sanskrit
> has also changed pronunciation though.
This is true, but nevertheless few adults are able to acquire a
perfect pronunciation of sounds outside of their native language.
Neither Vedic nor Sanskrit has been anyone's 'first' or 'natural'
language for thousands of years.
> Actually, I'm pretty sure there were also many dialects of Vedic
> Sanskrit in the different Shakhas -- it's just that only one of
> them has been passed down to us.
Yes, this is bound to be true.
David