I have no time to find out the exact page in M.Williams sanskrit grammar.He said it is v when it is in the begining or middle but it will be w when the it appears in gantva,hantva etc.I am not sure where he got this theory.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Didham" <robertdidham@...>
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 09:38:06 +0000
To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Pali] Re: pronunciation of Pali "v"
>
> Dear Yong Peng, Gabriel, Christine and others
>
> Thank you for an interesting discussion - and one which has a fair bit of
> potential for some more research.
>
> I wonder if part of the problem lies not in the pronunciation of the
> labio-dental itself but in what people think they hear - since people always
> associate what they hear with the nearest sound they are familiar with (this
> is the principal source of "accent" one hears in a non-native speaker of a
> language - and also one reason for the wei of wei-sai (the other is, of
> course, meaning)).
>
> In some western European languages (not lust Indo-European ones either) the
> contact between the lip and the teeth is quite strong although the exact
> location of contact varies so the acoustic effect varies a little. The
> other sound is the "w" sound which is produced bilabially. In other
> languages, including many languages of southeast and east Asia, there are
> not two sounds but one where the contact is very slight and in some
> languages there is essentially no contact at all - but the important point
> is that the mode of production can be either labio-dental or bilabial with
> very little difference in acoustic effect. What one person (say one with a
> very strong "v" sound) actually hears is a "w" whereas one used to a weak
> bilabial sound hears a "v". The occasions when a sound may appear to be
> different (the vata example) from what is otherwise heard may be due to the
> environment in which the word is placed - just as sandhi affects the
> pronunciation/hearing of vowels. So, what I am saying, I guess, is that
> there is not actually only two sounds but a whole continuum of variants, so
> the duality of v/w is not quite the answer.
>
> Since harmony is a key element in chanting the appropriate approach should
> be to use whatever pronunciation is in local use (apart from courtesy, a
> discordant pronunciation would be inappropriate wouldn't it?) This suggests
> that the "correct" pronunciation is local usage and the "original"
> pronunciation is irrelevant for this purpose - however much it is of
> significant linguistic historical interest. Did the Buddha not somewhere
> suggest that local linguistic usage was proper? (OK - I know he was talking
> about local languages and dialects, but I suspect the same principle
> applies)
>
> My own usage is interesting because I use a fairly strong "v" sound in most
> Paali except in words I use regularly in other languages such as Vesak
> (which I always pronounce more nearly as Wesak with a very weak final k
> because that is how it happens to sound to me in Khmer (and Thai for that
> matter) yet I always use a harder "v" for words like Vessantara. This
> doesn't make it right, but it doesn't seem to upset people either.
> Conversely I always use "v" for Sanskrit and anything else sounds wrong to
> my ear.
>
> The "original" pronunciation seems largely insoluble because even the
> commentaries and grammars which say specifically it is a labio-dental do not
> say how much force should be in the contact and since they are also rather
> late in composition they don't necessarily tell us how early Paali may have
> been spoken. We know a lot about vowel sounds from poetry but little about
> most consonants in most positions in a word.
>
>
> Metta
>
> Robert Didham
>
>
> >From: "Ong Yong Peng" <ypong001@...>
> >Reply-To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
> >To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
> >Subject: [Pali] Re: pronunciation of Pali "v"
> >Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 04:20:01 -0000
> >
> >Dear Dr. Bittar, Christine and friends,
> >
> >allow me to summarise that it is common in Theravada countries that
> >the Pali letter v is pronounced w, hence Vesak is pronounced Wesak.
> >In East Asia, Vesak Day is more popularly known as Buddha Day. It
> >would be interested to know that in Chinese (Mandarin) the v sound is
> >also missing and there is also no "wee". Instead, Vesak is Wei-Sai
> >(or "way-sak") to the Chinese.
> >
> >metta,
> >Yong Peng
> >
> >--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, christine_forsyth wrote:
> > > A friend living in Kuala Lumpur has sent me as email attachments
> >three .WAV files for Dhammapada verses 197, verse 198 and verse 199.
> >They contain the Pali recitation/chanting of these verses as done by
> >Dr. K. Sri Dhammanada. He pronounces all v's as v - except for the
> >word 'vata' which is pronounced as a soft'w'.
> >
>
>
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