Dear Mahinda,

Thank you so much for all your explanations! I find them very clear
and very useful. This is the first time I hear about this "schwa
germanicum" although I asked several persons about it before. The
Burmese don't seem to make any differences in their pronunciation of
a. Is there a Paa.li equivalent to viv.rta and sa.mv.rta and if so are
these terms explained in the kaccayana?

Kind regards,

Florent

> Dear Florent,
> Sorry, I had not noticed this query. The correct way to break up the
> syllables in mahaaraaja is ma-haa-raa-ja (SLLS) and for sakkaa it is

sak-kaa

> (LL).
>
> I should have said vowel followed by double consonant rather than "vwl
> folld by consnt".
>
> It is well known that 'a' stands for two sounds in Skt, Pali,

Sinhala etc.

> An example is gata, where the first a is an open (viv.rta) vowel

and the

> second is a closed (sa.mv.rta) vowel (what they call the
> "schwa germanicum"). Ac. to the way I pronounce ka-ra-kaa-ra-ko,

vwl 1 is

> open, 2 and 4 are closed. This accords with the Sri Lankan Pali
> pronounciation.
>
> Mahinda
>
>
>
>
> Dear Mahinda,
> >
> > > In both Pali and Skt, a vowel followed by a consonant is counted as
> > > a long syllable: a single short vowel is a syllabic unit; when you
> > > add another sound to it it becomes 2 units. In actual
> > > pronounciation we can see that this makes sense.
> >
> > Let's take the word mahaaraaja. If I understand your explanation, the
> > fist "a" being followed by a consonant is counted as long (2 units).
> > Does it mean the next "aa" is counted as 3 units? What if the vowel
> > "a" is followed by 2 consonnants like in "sakkaa". How many units does
> > it become? 2 units? 3?
> >
> > One more question if you allow. My first Pali teacher used to be from
> > Sri Lanka and he would pronounce the last "a" in "mahaaraaja"
> > differently from the first one, more like in the English word "hut"
> > rather than in the word "what". Here in Burma they don't seem to make
> > any difference. Is there any rule regarding the pronunciation of the
> > "a"s in a word? I had the impression that my Srilankan teacher would
> > always pronounce final "a" like in "hut" and some "a"s in the middle
> > of words as well. Like for example in the word "karakaarako". do you
> > pronounce the 1st, 2nd and 4th "a" in the same way?
> >
> > Kind regards,
> >
> > Florent
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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>