On Sat, 16 Mar 2002 01:14:11 -0000, "michael_donne"
<
michael_donne@...> wrote:
>David: Sanskrit has only long 'e' and 'o', and they're clearly
>phonetic realizations of the diphthongs 'ai' and 'au' (or 'ay'
>or 'av') in a closed syllable, replaced by 'ay' and 'av' in open
>syllables.
>
>MD: I question that. In fact, I would reverse it: 'ai' and 'au' are
>considered by ancient Indians to be further along the spectrum
>than 'e' and 'o'. Westerners commonly (mis)pronounce 'e' and 'o' as
>long syllables, but most if not all Indians pronounce them short.
But what relevance does the modern pronunciation have? Vowel length
is not distinguished in the modern pronunciation of Latin either. In
Vedic and Classical Sanskrit, <e> and <o> always represented a long
vowel (IPA /e:/ and /o:/). In Prakrits such as Pali, <e> and <o> were
long in open syllables, short in closed syllables. In modern Hindi,
<e> and <o> usually represent short closed [close-mid] /e/ and /o/,
respectively.
>Also, if you go to the IPA chart and download the Hindi sounds and
>listen to 'dirt.wav' which is the Hindi word 'maila' you'll hear how
>short this supposed 'ai' dipthong actually is.
You're confused: <ai> and <au> are different sounds altogether. In
Vedic and Classical Sanskrit, they represented the long diphthongs
/a:i/ and /a:u/ respectively. After */ai/ and */au/ had gone to /e:/
and /o:/ (written <e> and <o>), the way was clear for these long
diphthongs to develop into short /ai/ and /au/, and eventually (as in
modern Hindi), to the short/long open vowels [open-mid] /E(:)/ and
/O(:)/.
>My understanding is that 'i' was normal grade and 'e' was the first
>level of strengthening. I'd love to see some references to Sanskrit
>grammar that show otherwise -- or that even discuss this in general.
The analysis of the ancient Sanskrit grammarians differs from the
modern analysis in several respects. In traditional grammars
(ultimately based on Pa:n.ini), the citation form of roots (the
"normal" form, one might say), normally corresponds to what in modern
usage would be the reduced form (zero grade, Nullstufe). The normal
grade of modern usage is what the ancient Indian grammarians called
"gun.a". The "vr.ddhi" grade of traditional Indian granmmar usually
corresponds with modern "lengthened grade" (Dehnstufe, vrddhi), but
sometimes (due to Brugmann's Law) with modern "o-grade". The modern
analysis has no use for sam.prasa:ran.a and other complications that
are required in the traditional view to make up for the failure to
recognise gun.a as the normal grade.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...