Re: [tied] Stop horsing around

Hi!

As an amateur I've always wondered how we know the value for Sanskrit /a/. Is
it simply the reflexes in the modern Indic languages? Panini's rule 'a a' does
not contain enough information in itself and I always thought it unlikely that
the ancient Indian phonetic descriptions were accurate enough to allow the
conclusion that /a/ was in fact schwa. (I've never read Allen's Phonetics in
Ancient India). And is the modern reflex REALLY schwa or is it more like the
English 'u' in 'but'?

Kevin